During this long altercation Jean Bower, standing in the witness-box, is growing paler and paler. She clutches convulsively the ledge before her, and Sir Harold looks at her with concern. He does not wish her to faint before she has answered his questions; on the other hand he tells himself that the sight of a fainting young woman always touches your more sentimental juryman.
The great advocate happens to be, however, a far more imaginative man than is Sir Almeric Post, and he realizes that Jean Bower’s ordeal has lasted long enough. So, to the disappointment of the Court, he does not address many questions to the young woman who has just acknowledged her passionate love for Harry Garlett, and for the sake of whose love the immense majority—almost every human being present at the trial—believe he has committed a singularly foul and dastardly murder.
Sir Almeric does not trouble to re-examine the witness. He knows by now that he has practically won his case, and he has no wish to cause any of the hapless human beings connected with this painful story any unnecessary distress.
IV
Till comparatively lately a British prisoner could not give evidence in his own defence, but that is no longer so, and Henry Garlett is, as is known, eager to go into the witness-box.
At once, when he is facing the Court with a strained tense look, it becomes clear that Sir Almeric does not intend to play with the wretched man as a cat plays with a mouse. He leaves those methods to Sir Harold Anstey. To the deep disappointment of many of those present, after Harry Garlett has been sworn, only a comparatively short interchange of question and answer takes place between the man now on trial for his life and the man who leads the prosecution against him:
“I understand that your only answer to the terrible charge of which you stand accused is that you are absolutely and entirely innocent?”
“That is my answer,” says Henry Garlett in a firm voice.
“Well, I will just take you briefly through the principal points. You lived, I understand, for thirteen years with this poor lady whom you married when you were only twenty-two and she twenty-seven—you being a penniless lad, and she a considerable heiress?”
“That is so,” says the prisoner.