"And why," said the sheriff, "did not you yourself immediately inform the justice of your country?"
Mr. Ablethorpe turned upon Sheriff Duffus with a pitying look.
"I was bound," he said simply, "by the secret of the confessional!"
"In Scotland," said the sheriff severely, "we do not acknowledge any such obligation. But no matter for that, if now, even though discreditably late, you have by your influence brought this woman to make public confession!"
"I take my friend by my side to witness—I take Euphrasia Orrin—I take Him who hears all confessions which come from the heart, to witness that never have I put the least pressure on this poor woman's conscience! What she is now doing is by her own desire!"
The sheriff shrugged his shoulders, and the ghost of a smile flickered among the crafty wrinkles about the corner of the fiscal's mouth. His work was being done for him.
"You refuse the crumb of credit I was willing to allow you," said the sheriff. "Well, I put no limit to what any man's conscience may prescribe to itself, when once it begins to set up rules for its own guidance. Let us get to business. What has the woman to say?"
The woman had much to say. It was the early afternoon of mid-March when Aphra began to speak, and long before she had finished the court-keeper and his temporary assistant were lighting the dim gas jets arranged at wide distances along the wall.
Her crape veil thrown back over a bonnet showing a face, as it were, carven in grey granite, Aphra Orrin stood before her country's justice fingering a brown rosary. Every time she paused, even for a second, one could hear the click of the beads mechanically dropped from nervous fingers. Strong men's ears sang. It was as if the terrible things her lips were relating had been some history of old, long-punished crimes, the record of which she was recalling as a warning. Yet within what of soul she had, doubtless the woman was at her prayers.
Not once did she manifest the least emotion or contrition, still less fear. And she made her recital in the calmest manner, with some occasional rhapsodical language certainly, but with none of the madness which I should have expected.