“I with Richard Hare!” cried Afy, agitated in her turn, and shaking like an aspen-leaf, partly with discomfiture, partly with unknown dread. “How dare that cruel falsehood be brought up again, to my face? I never saw Richard Hare after the night of the murder. I swear it. I swear that I never saw him since. Visit him! I’d sooner visit Calcraft, the hangman.”
There was truth in the words—in the tone. The chairman let fall the hand which had been raised to his face, holding on his eye-glasses; and a sort of self-condemning fear arose, confusing his brain. His son, proved innocent of one part, might be proved innocent of the other; and then—how would his own harsh conduct show out! West Lynne, in its charity, the justice in his, had cast more odium to Richard, with regard to his after conduct touching this girl, than it had on the score of the murder.
“Come,” said Lawyer Ball, in a coaxing tone, “let us be pleasant. Of course you were not with Richard Hare—West Lynne is always ill-natured—you were on a visit to Captain Thorn, as—as any other young lady might be?”
Afy hung her head, cowed down to abject meekness.
“Answer the question,” came forth the chairman’s voice again. “Were you with Thorn?”
“Yes,” though the answer was feeble enough.
Mr. Ball coughed an insinuating cough.
“Did you remain with him—say two or three years?”
“Not three.”
“A little over two, perhaps?”