Counsel rose again, and asked that the defendant's witnesses might be recalled. This was done.
"John Proudfoot, Job Sheepshanks, Thomas Lowthwaite, Giles Raisley, look this way. Who is this man?"
There was a dead hush. Then, one by one, the men who had been named shook their heads. They did not know the convict. Indeed, he was terribly altered. The ordeal of the past two years had plowed strange lines in his face. At that moment he was less like himself than was the impostor who came there to personate him.
Hugh Ritson's manner did not change. Only a slight curl of the lip betrayed his feelings.
Counsel continued, "Is there any one in court who recognizes him?"
Not a voice responded. All was silence.
"Will the defendant stand side by side with him?"
Drayton leaped up with a boisterous laugh, and swaggered his way to the opposite side of the table. As he approached, the convict looked at him keenly.
"Will Mrs. Ritson come forward again?"
Greta had already risen, and was holding Parson Christian's hand with a nervous grip. She stepped apart, and going behind the two men, she came to a stand between them. On the one side stood Drayton, with a smirking face half turned toward the spectators; on the other stood the convict, his hands bound before him, his defiant glance softened to a look of tenderness, and his lips parted with the unuttered cry that was ready to burst from them.