"Surely, father, you do not believe him guilty?" was her reply. "I know that the evidence is black against him; but he could not do it! He could not do it!"
As the judge looked at his daughter's face, a ray of hope shone into his heart. If the trial had impressed her in this way, might not the jury also be led to doubt the evidence given? He knew that many men had been hanged on circumstantial evidence, but it might be that they would refuse to accept the evidence in this case as sufficient.
"You see," persisted the girl, and he noticed that her lace was full of anguish, that her eyes shone with an unnatural light—"he could not do it, father."
"Do you mean to say that you regard the evidence as insufficient?"
It was utterly unlike him to talk with her about any trial in which he was engaged. Such things, he had always maintained, were not for women. They had neither the training nor the acumen to give an opinion worth considering. But now he caught at the girl's words like a drowning man might catch at a straw.
"Oh, I know the evidence is terrible enough," she replied. "But that doesn't convince me a bit. Father, you cannot allow them to hang him."
He stood still looking at her steadily, and as he did so the horror of the whole situation seized him more terribly than ever. He knew what she did not know. His mind was filled with thoughts of which she was in utter ignorance.
"I can do nothing, my child," he said, "nothing! It is a case for the jury. They have to hear the evidence, and then they pass judgment accordingly. If they condemn him as guilty, I must pass judgment of death, I cannot help myself. I am as helpless as the hangman. If the jury says 'Guilty,' I must pronounce death, and the hangman must do the horrible thing!"
"But, father, don't you see? He has refused to have counsel, and you would have to sum up the evidence. And when you are summing up you could say how inconclusive it was, how terrible it would be to hang a man because a set of circumstances seemed to point in a certain direction."
He was silent for a few seconds. The old numbness had come over his mind again. But he determined to let his daughter know nothing of it.