Ruth sprang to William's defence. She said that it was not his fault. They were separated by the crowd. He had done his best, and all that any one could have done.
"I made William take me. He didn't want to do it. And I am not sorry that I went, although I was so much frightened at the time. Without seeing it, no one can ever know what this strange and awful thing is like. No description can possibly describe it," she said, with darkening eyes and rising color.
"A most shocking and improper scene," said William Pressley, as one who weighs his words. "A most shocking and improper scene."
Ruth looked at him wonderingly.
"Shocking—improper!" she faltered, perplexedly. "What a strange way to think of it. To me it was a great, grave, terrible spectacle. The awe of it overwhelmed me, alarmed as I was. Why, it was like seeing the Soul universal—bared and quivering."
William Pressley said nothing more. He never discussed anything. Once he had spoken, the subject seemed to him finally disposed of.
"Great Grief!" cried Miss Penelope in the blankest amazement and the greatest dismay. "For the land's sake!"
As the faithful high-priestess of the coffee-pot she was always the first to taste her own brew. She now set her cup down hastily. Her red, wrinkled little face was a study. The widow Broadnax, whose cup was untouched, sat silent and impassive as usual, regarding her with the same dull, half-open, unwinking gaze.
"What under the sun!" gasped Miss Penelope, still more and more amazed and dismayed, and growing angry as she rallied from the shock.
"Come, come!—if I can't eat breakfast in peace, I'll take to the woods. What's the matter?" exclaimed the judge. "Didn't you get the coffee made to suit you, after all that rumpus? Isn't it good?"