She answers in a low, halting voice:
“When the doctor told me he couldn’t last out the night, I didn’t think it mattered what happened. Besides, I knew they couldn’t do much till the next day, and I believed that the next day he would be dead—and so he was.”
“The commissioner for oaths,” Sir Harold looked at one of the papers in his hand, “is Mr. Theophilus Jones——”
There runs a nervous laugh through the Court. The judge looks very stern.
Sir Harold goes on—“of 15, London Wall. That gentleman, or so I understand, has influenza. That is why he is not here to-day.”
The witness answers, “Yes, sir—I’m afraid he caught cold coming out to see my husband at night time.”
There is another titter, which is quickly suppressed.
“You see, sir, I didn’t know what to do! And then Mrs. Lightfoot, she says to me, ‘There’s a gentleman as is a commissioner for oaths living in this very square. It was him as had to do with the lease of this house.’ So I went round to his home, sir, and I just told him the truth—that my dear husband was dying and wanted to make a confession to him. He’s an old gentleman, and he was very kind to me. He said it wasn’t in order, but that he’d come. And he did, sir. My husband had made me put down—he was too weak to write himself—what he wanted said, and the old gentleman, Mr. Jones, he read it over to him, and then my husband swore it was all true.”
At this point Mr. Toogood is seen entering the Court, and a memorandum is handed up to the judge.
Meanwhile the witness remains standing quite still in the box staring before her as if hardly knowing where she is.