He leaned forward.
“Come, my girl,” he said—and his familiar tone struck her, as it were, in the face,—never had such a tone been used to her before! “Let us have no nonsense. You will not improve your case that way. Let me tell you, we are accustomed to all sorts here. You must speak when you are told to speak, and be silent when you are bid, and in the meantime listen to me! Listen to me, I say!” staying by an imperious nod the angry remonstrance that was on her lips. “And remember where you are, if you wish to be well treated. If you are sensible and tell the truth, some other course will be found than that which, it is to be feared, must end this business.”
“But by what right,” Henrietta cried, striving to command both her rage and her fear—“by what right——”
“Am I about to question you?”—with a smirk of humour and a glance at the audience. “By the right of the law, young woman, which I would have you know is of some account here, however it may stand in Lancashire.”
“The law?” she stammered. And she looked round terrified. “Why? Why? What have I done?” she cried pathetically.
For a moment all was dark before her.
He laughed slyly.
“That’s to be seen,” he said. “No hanging matter,” he continued humorously, “I hope. And as it’s good law that everybody’s innocent—that’s so, Mr. Dobbie, is it not?”—he addressed the clerk—“until he’s found to be guilty, let somebody set the young woman a chair.”
“I can stand!” she cried.
“Nay, you sit down!” muttered a gruff voice in her ear. And a hand—it was Mrs. Gilson’s—pressed her down in the chair. “And you answer straight out,” the woman continued coolly, in defiance of the scandalised look which Mr. Dobbie, the clerk, cast upon her, “and there’s not one of ’em can do you any harm.”