"And you know nothing that conflicts with what she says—that she never had a child and therefore could not have killed it?"
"'Deed no, Sir, nothing whatever."
She had answered in a tremulous voice which the Deemster found deeply affecting. Once or twice she had lifted her weak eyes to his with a pitiful look of supplication, and he had had to turn his own eyes away. "I should do it myself," he thought.
"And now, Mrs. Collister," said Gell, "if you were here this morning you heard what the Attorney-General said—that your daughter had been of a lawless disposition and had run away from home without apparent reason. Is there any truth in that?"
"Bessie was always a good girl, Sir. It was lies the gentleman was putting on her."
"Is the prisoner your husband's daughter?"
"No, Sir," the old woman faltered, "his step-daughter."
"Is it true that her step-father has always been hard on her?"
The old woman hesitated, then faltered again, "Middling hard anyway."
"Don't be afraid. Remember, your daughter's liberty, perhaps her life, are in peril. Tell the Jury what happened on the day she left home."