"How do you plead?"
"I plead not guilty."
"On what ground?" asked the voice.
The defendant raised his head. "On the ground that I had good and sufficient reason to justify my emotion."
"The reactographs on your wife, Mary Hastings, have been thoroughly examined, and it has been determined that she performed no act which in any way deviated from the norm. Had any disturbances taken place within Mary Hastings during the week of last March ninth to sixteenth, it would have shown up plainly in a flux on the charts. Your contention is impossible."
The man in the box bit his lip. "Nevertheless, I contend it. My wife gave me sufficient reason. She—she was unfaithful to me."
Only silence for a full minute.
"It is impossible."
"But true!" Hastings shouted.
The multitude leaned forward, a misted inquiry rustling its skirts.