Otway.
So great was the confidence of Sarah Wilmeter and Anna Updyke in the innocence of their friend, that almost every step that the trial advanced, appeared to them as so much progress towards an eventual acquittal. It was perhaps a little singular, that the party most interested, she who knew her own guilt or innocence, became dejected, and for the first half hour after they had left the court-room, she was silent and thoughtful. Good Mrs. Gott was quite in despair, and detained Anna Updyke, with whom she had established a sort of intimacy, as she opened the door of the gallery for the admission of the party, in order to say a word on the subject that lay nearest to her heart.
“Oh! Miss Anna,” said the sheriff’s wife, “it goes from bad to worse! It was bad enough last evening, and it is worse to-night.”
“Who tells you this, Mrs. Gott? So far from thinking as you do, I regard it as appearing particularly favourable.”
“You must have heard what Burton said, and what his wife said, too. They are the witnesses I dread.”
“Yes, but who will mind what such persons say! I am sure if fifty Mr. and Mrs. Burtons were to testify that Mary Monson had taken money that did not belong to her, I should not believe them.”
“You are not a Duke’s county jury! Why, Miss Anna, these men will believe almost anything you tell them. Only swear to it, and there’s no accounting for their credulity. No; I no more believe in Mary Monson’s guilt, than I do in my own; but law is law, they say, and rich and poor must abide by it.”
“You view the matter under a false light, my kind-hearted Mrs. Gott, and after a night’s rest will see the case differently. Sarah and I have been delighted with the course of things. You must have remarked no one said that Mary Monson had been seen to set fire to the house, or to harm the Goodwins, or to touch their property, or to do anything that was wrong; and of course she must be acquitted.”
“I wish that piece of gold had not been found in her pocket! It’s that which makes all the trouble.”
“I think nothing of that, my good friend. There is nothing remarkable in two pieces of money having the same marks on them; I have seen that often, myself. Besides, Mary Monson explains all that, and her declaration is as good as that of this Mrs. Burton’s, any day.”