The advocate turned his gleaming eyes to the Jury and the side of his powerful face to the witness.
"You are a Methodist yourself, aren't you?"
"Such as I am, Sir."
"And as a Methodist you are taught to believe that truth is sacred and that a lie (no matter under what temptation told) is a thing of the devil and no good can come of it?"
The old woman faltered something that was barely heard, and then the big advocate turned quickly round on her, and said in a stern voice, looking full into her timid eyes,
"Mrs. Collister, as you are a Christian woman and expect to meet your father some day, will you swear that when your daughter returned home on the fifth of April you did not see at a glance that she was about to become a mother of a child?"
The old woman shuddered as if she had been smitten by an invisible hand, breathed audibly, tried to speak, stopped, then closed her eyes, swayed a little and laid hold of the bar in front of her.
"Inspector, see to the witness quickly," cried the Deemster.
At the next moment the old woman was being helped out of the witness-box and borne towards the door, where, realising what she had done for her daughter, she broke into a fit of weeping, which rent the silence of the Court until the door had closed behind her.
"In that cry," said the advocate, "the Jury has heard the answer to my question. It is proof enough that the prisoner had a child, and that her mother knew it."