“Not by no means, it won’t do!” he said. “What she says is slap up against the evidence, sir, and evidence strong enough to hang a man. The truth is, your reverence, the young lady has had every chance, and all said and done we are losing time. And time is more than money! The sooner she is under lock and key the better.”
“You apply that she be committed?” Hornyold asked slowly.
“I do, sir.”
The Justice looked at Bishop.
“Do you join in the application?” he asked.
The officer nodded, but with evident reluctance.
The clerk, who had taken his seat at the corner of the table and laid some papers before him, dipped his pen in the inkhorn, which he carried at his button-hole. He prepared to write. “On the charge of being accessory?” he said in a low voice. “Before or after, Mr. Nadin?”
“Both,” said Nadin.
“After,” said Bishop.
The clerk looked from one to the other, and then began to write; but slowly, and as if he wished to leave as long as possible a locus penitentiæ. It was a feeling shared by all except Captain Clyne. Even the Manchester man, hardened as he was by a rude life in the roughest of towns, had had jobs more to his taste—and wished it done; while the feeling of the greater part was one of pity. The girl was so young, her breeding and refinement were so manifest, her courage so high, she confronted them so bravely, that they were sensible of something cruel in their attitude to her; gathered as they were many to one—and that one a woman with no one of her sex beside her. They recoiled from the idea of using force to her. And now it was really come to the point of imprisoning her, those who had a notion what a prison was disliked it most; fearing not only that she might resist removal and cause a heart-rending scene, but still more that she had unknown sufferings before her.