The sensation was immense; the court-room hummed, the weariest juror turned and looked down the crowded room. Very slowly a way was made to the witness-stand, and a tall slight figure in white, with a broad straw hat and a light veil, came quietly forward.
Caleb Trench turned deadly white.
In a stillness so intense that every man seemed to hear only his own heart beat, the clerk administered the oath and the new witness went on the stand.
XXIV
JUDGE HOLLIS, standing before the witness-stand, looked at Diana with fatherly eyes; his manner lost its brusqueness and became that of the old-fashioned gentleman of gallantry. Diana herself looked across the court-room with a composure and dignity of pose that became her. Every eye was riveted upon her. For days the papers had reeked with the story of Jean Bartlett and her child, yet here—on the stand for the prisoner—was one of the first young ladies in the State.
Judge Hollis had been taking notes, and he closed his notebook on his finger and took off his gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Where were you on the afternoon of Tuesday, August eighteenth, about one o’clock, Miss Diana?�
Diana answered at once, and in a clear low voice. “In this building, Judge, in a small room on the lower floor.�
“A small room on the lower floor? Let us see, Miss Diana,�—the judge tapped his book with his spectacles,—“the room to the right, was it, at the end of the west corridor?�
Diana explained the position of the room and the vicinity of the staircase.