'Serves him right, though,' Robbins quenched his momentary pity. 'I knew all the time he was lying.' He started suddenly, so violently that the listener seated next him turned in irritation. 'And,' it had flashed through his mind, 'and he knew I was!'
His eyes sought the prisoner—the man who also knew—where he sat hunched heavily forward in his chair, his arms upon the table. For an instant, pity, like some racking physical pain, shot through Robbins. To be caught in such a web! To be caught through no fault of his own! It was the first time the purely personal side had broken its way past his own selfish concern. It stifled him and, forcing his eyes from the man’s brooding face, he got up and stumbled out of the room.
But he could not stay out. An indefinite dread dragged him back presently. An indefinite dread held him bound to his place during the examination of the witnesses who followed, during the days of argument, and the judge’s inconclusive charge. He lay awake on the night following the jury’s retirement, picturing over and over in his own mind the scene of their return—just what degree of astonishment his face should show in listening to their verdict, with just what proud reticence and conscious wrong he should make his way out from the crowd. He had never said that Whiting was guilty—he reminded himself of that. All he had ever said was that on one certain day, in one certain place— He rolled over on his face and, hands across his eyes, tried vainly to sleep.
Half of Sutro was loafing about the court-house lawn next morning, pushing its way into the corridors at every rumor, drifting back to the freer outer air. When at last the rumor proved a true one, Robbins found himself far in the back of the room, the wall behind him, on three sides a packed, jostling crowd. There was a blur of unintentional noise in the place—heavy breathing, the creaking of a door. Through the noise pierced at intervals the accustomed voice of the judge, and set between the intervals the mumble of the foreman’s reply.
'—Agreed, all of you?'
'Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?'
The mumble dropped lower still. A stir swept over the front of the room, a wave of voiceless interest passing from front to back.
'What—what—' Robbins stammered, straining higher on tiptoe.
'Guilty. Manslaughter,' said the man beside him. He brought his hand down heavily on the boy’s shoulder. 'Suits you all right. Everybody knew—'
The gavel sounded and he broke off, bending forward to listen.