“I apologize,” said the deep voice—“sincerely,” and he bowed to June. Then very quietly:
“What was the last thing you heard the prisoner say that afternoon when he left your father's house?”
It had come—how well she remembered just what he had said and how, that night, even when she was asleep, Rufe's words had clanged like a bell in her brain—what her awakening terror was when she knew that the deed was done and the stifling fear that the victim might be Hale. Swiftly her mind worked—somebody had blabbed, her step-mother, perhaps, and what Rufe had said had reached a Falin ear and come to the relentless man in front of her. She remembered, too, now, what the deep voice was saying as she came into the door:
“There must be deliberation, a malicious purpose proven to make the prisoner's crime a capital offence—I admit that, of course, your Honour. Very well, we propose to prove that now,” and then she had heard her name called. The proof that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the scaffold was to come from her—that was why she was there. Her lips opened and Rufe's eyes, like a snake's, caught her own again and held them.
“He said he was going over to the Gap—”
There was a commotion at the door, again the crowd parted, and in towered giant Judd Tolliver, pushing people aside as though they were straws, his bushy hair wild and his great frame shaking from head to foot with rage.
“You went to my house,” he rumbled hoarsely—glaring at Hale—“an' took my gal thar when I wasn't at home—you—”
“Order in the Court,” said the Judge sternly, but already at a signal from Hale several guards were pushing through the crowd and old Judd saw them coming and saw the Falins about him and the Winchesters at the port-holes, and he stopped with a hard gulp and stood looking at June.
“Repeat his exact words,” said the deep voice again as calmly as though nothing had happened.
“He said, 'I'm goin' over to the Gap—'” and still Rufe's black eyes held her with mesmeric power—would she lie for him—would she lie for him?