"Are you ill? Shall I ask for an adjournment?" they asked breathlessly.
"No! No! No!" she panted, "I'm all right—all right!"
Her eyes were still closed and her lips worked as if she were trying to speak. Dr. Chennel's fingers closed over her left wrist. He leaned over and whispered reassuring words in her ear and gently patted her shoulder. The subtle magnetism cf the physician seemed to have its effect at last and she slowly opened her eyes and sat up.
The din in the courtroom died as suddenly as it had begun, and the spectators shamefacedly sought their seats under the blazing eyes of the President.
He was livid with anger.
"This is the most disgraceful scene that ever stained a French court!" he cried in a voice that trembled with suppressed rage. "If there is another sound from the benches during these proceedings I will order the gendarmes to clear the hall!"
Noel glanced quickly at his friend in his seat behind the judges to see if he, too, had recognized "the woman, Laroque."
Floriot's face was buried in his hands. He pressed a handkerchief so tightly to his eyes that Noel fancied he could see the whiteness of the nails. Any great blow—mental or physical—is immediately followed by a practically complete cessation of all activity of the senses. The mind —if it works at all—revolves around singular and ridiculous trifles, utterly foreign to the disaster or its effect. It was this condition that the recognition of Jacqueline left her husband. He was conscious that quiet had been restored and that Valmorin was continuing his speech, but the scene and its actors seemed remote from his life.
"As for the reason of the crime," the prosecutor was saying, "I repeat that we do not know it. Now that the prisoner has promised to speak, we may learn what it was."
Speak!—would she speak!—Raymond was standing half facing the prosecutor, his profile toward the woman. His right hand rested on the top of the railing in front of the dock. Jacqueline's eyes were on his handsome head, and in them there was unutterable love and unutterable dread. His delicate nostrils were quivering, and a touch of color came and went in his cheeks. He was watching Valmorin with eager, anxious eyes. Timidly, as a child, her hand crept out and closed softly over his fingers. He glanced up at her quickly, with what was meant to be a reassuring smile, but the early stage fright was returning. The prosecutor was nearing the end of his speech and in a few moments he must rise to reply. She drew her hand away, and he looked from it to the woman for a moment as if something remarkable had happened.