"Don't you think it is a pretty confession for a young lady to make?"
She burst into fresh tears. The judge turned his grave face upon Sergeant Seeitall. But the sergeant had impudence enough for ten.
"Pray, how many times had that pretty little midnight drama been enacted?" he continued, whilst Anna sobbed in distress.
"Never before," burst forth a deep voice. "Don't you see it was a pure accident, as she tells you? How dare you treat her as you might a shameless witness?"
The interruption—one of powerful emotion—had come from the prisoner. At the sound of his voice, Anna started, and looked round hurriedly to the quarter whence it came. It was the first time she had raised her eyes to the court since entering the witness-box. She had glanced up to answer whoever questioned her, and that was all.
"Well?" said Sergeant Seeitall, as if demanding what else she might have to communicate.
"I have no more to tell. I have told thee all I know. It was nearly one o'clock when he went away, and I never saw him after."
"Did the prisoner wear a cloak when he came to the field that night?"
"No. He wore one sometimes, but he did not have it on that night. It was very warm——"
But, at that moment, Anna Lynn became conscious that a familiar face was strained upon her from the midst of the crowd: familiar, and yet not familiar; for the face was distorted from its natural look, and was blanched, as of one in the last agony—the face of Samuel Lynn. With a sharp cry of pain—of dread—Anna fell on the floor in a fainting fit. What the shame of being before that public court, of answering the searching questions of the counsel, had failed to take away—her senses—the sight of her father, cognizant of her disgrace, had effected. Surely it was a disgrace for a young and guileless maiden to have to confess to such an escapade—an escapade that sounded worse to censuring ears than it had been in reality. Anna fainted. Mr. Winthorne stepped forward, and she was borne out.