He was following every word of his counsel. His every inflection. His every gesture. Danson was pointing at him.
“And that man there,” he was saying. “The man now grown out of the boy with whom you were raised, the boy you loved and played with, who only thought of your happiness and comfort, the boy you’ve just told the Court you even sided with against your father in some domestic affair. You wanted to send him to penitentiary, deliberately, callously, him and your father as well, both, so you could be free to satisfy your woman’s lust for a policeman whose propensities you knew only too well. Tell me. That man—and your father? You were betraying, sacrificing them, that you might have your lover—your husband?”
The scorn and revolting were devastating. The lawyer’s tone smote as it was intended to smite.
Annette shrank before its withering. Her nervous grip on the rail was pitiful. For an instant Croisette had a vision of self-horror in the widened black eyes. Then the lids fell to conceal the world of shame they had been driven to betray.
“Answer!”
Like a gunshot Danson’s challenge rang out.
“He—reckoned he couldn’t marry me without—promotion.”
Annette’s voice was so low that every ear in the Court was set straining. A sigh broke like a wave over the spectators.
“And so you must betray them, the men who’d loved you, and raised you, and fed you, and clothed you. Penitentiary! That was his price—for marriage.”
“Ye-es.”