Perhaps few men can realize what it is to a woman to face for the first time the embodiment of all that her strong faith and utter ignorance has carried to mature years as an ideal of justice and dignity—of solemn obligation and fearful responsibility. To her there has been no reverse side to the picture. She believes in courts as courts of justice. She knows nothing of quibble, of technicality, of precedent. Nothing here is light or humorous to her. Next to a death chamber the criminal court-room is fullest of the thoughts which reach beyond mere human responsibility and import, and all that passes there is freighted for her with a sense of finality that few men can comprehend. They think of reversal of judgment.
The fiat of the court is the closing knell to a woman; and although she may know the judge in private life to be a fallible or—more incongruous still—a jovial man, his presence here is overpowering. Of the jury she feels vaguely, dread. Of the judge, awe.
The mother of the prisoner sat near him. Her sad, pale, refined face troubled the young prosecutor sorely and he tugged at his conscience and spurred on his resolution after each glance at her.
The case was so plain, the evidence so clear, the defence so weak that the whole tide of public sentiment swung rapidly from the side of the prisoner to that of the people.
The indignation for him which had been felt by the society women who had come to show themselves as his friends changed into scorn and contempt. The whole mental atmosphere of the room underwent a revolution. When court opened few besides the officers believed him guilty. As the case drew near its close no one believed him innocent. He had not been allowed by his counsel to take the stand in his own behalf, and this had told strongly against him in the minds of both jury and spectators. The prosecuting attorney had made a telling speech, and the charge of the judge was plainly indicative of his opinion that there was but one verdict to give.
The jury had taken but one ballot. They had needed no charge from the judge at all.
"Guilty,"—came from the foreman's lips with a decided accent that indicated a certain satisfaction in pronouncing it. The prisoner's face grew a shade paler, but the puzzled light in his eyes lost nothing of that weary, insistent questioning that had marked their depths all day. Indeed, he seemed to be as much surprised, as the evidence had been unfolded, as were the friends who were there to see him vindicated.
During the speech of the prosecutor and the charge of the judge young Banks; mother had held her son's hand and tears had dropped unheeded from her eyes.
The judge had spoken again, but no one moved. The attorney for the prisoner bent forward and touched him on the shoulder.
"Stand up for sentence," he said. "The judge"—