Following this witness came two others. Then the judge rose, and looking up to the balcony where the Chemist and his companions were sitting, motioned to the Chemist to descend to the floor below.
The Very Young Man tried once again with his whispered question "What is it?" but the Chemist only smiled, and rising quietly left them.
There was a stir in the court-room as the Chemist crossed the main floor. He did not ascend the platform with the prisoner, but stood beside it. He spoke to the jury quietly, yet with a suppressed power in his voice that must have been convincing. He spoke only a moment, more with the impartial attitude of one who gives advice than as a witness. When he finished, he bowed to the court and left the floor, returning at once to his friends upon the balcony.
Following the Chemist, after a moment of silence, the judge briefly addressed the prisoner, who stolidly maintained his attitude of ironic defiance.
"He is going to ask the jury to give its verdict now," said the Chemist in a low voice.
Lylda and her companion leader rose and faced their subordinates, and with a verbal monosyllable from each member of the jury the verdict was unhesitatingly given. As the last juryman's voice died away, there came a cry from the back of the room, a woman tore herself loose from the attendants holding her, and running swiftly across the room leaped upon the platform. She was a slight little woman, almost a child in appearance beside the man's gigantic stature. She stood looking at him a moment with heaving breast and great sorrowful eyes from which the tears were welling out and flowing down her cheeks unheeded.
The man's face softened. He put his hands gently upon the sides of her neck. Then, as she began sobbing, he folded her in his great arms. For an instant she clung to him. Then he pushed her away. Still crying softly, she descended from the platform, and walked slowly back across the room.
Hardly had she disappeared when there arose from the street outside a faint, confused murmur, as of an angry crowd gathering. The judge had left his seat now and the jury was filing out of the room.
The Chemist turned to his friends. "Shall we go?" he asked.
"This trial—" began the Big Business Man. "You haven't told us its significance. This man—good God what a figure of power and hate and evil. Who is he?"