"You know already, gentlemen," said he, "my view of this case. I think that by this time it must be yours also."
Mrs. Stiles moaned. Then Mr. Pope proved to the jury that it was utter nonsense for Mrs. Stiles's witnesses to pretend that they had seen the accident, because the ordinary pedestrian looks at his nose when he is walking, and not at the car-track. The jury smiled, the room grew hotter and hotter, and the judge whiter and whiter.
"Mr. Mecutchen?" cried Mr. Pope. "Mr. Mecutchen never laid eyes on Mrs. Stiles until he saw her lying in the middle of the street. I don't say he is intentionally prevaricating. Of course he thinks he saw all that he says he did. I grew up in the firm conviction that I had known Judas Iscariot. I was ten years old before I could be persuaded that it was only a sweet delusion,—a dazzling dream of childhood, too bright to last."
The jury roared.
Then Mr. Pope talked of his own witnesses, and the virtues with which he didn't invest those remarkable beings may exist in heaven, but are certainly not to be found on earth, nor even in any of the intermediate planetary paradises known to the Spiritualists.
And then—then he descended on Mrs. Stiles herself.
"What," he cried, suddenly, turning with an outburst of indignant impatience from the petty arguments into which his love for the exhibition of the whole truth in all its details had led him, "what are you told by the most respectable and conscientious witness who has appeared here to-day? What is the testimony of the one person who ought to know everything about this case? What does Mrs. Stiles say? Nothing. She says nothing. She doesn't know what happened. If this were a strong case, she would describe to you with minute particularity the manner in which she put her hand upon the rail of the car, stepped on, was jolted, tried to save herself, was thrown off. But not a word of this have you heard from her. All that she remembers, as she confesses, is that the car was in motion when she got on it."
Oh, where was Celandine? Had she gone out only to get ice-cream, or because Georgiana was so hot that she couldn't stand it any longer? Mrs. Stiles could not remember. Maybe it was Mr. Mecutchen that had spoken of the ice-cream, and Celandine was going to put Georgiana in the cars and send her home. It would have been better to send Augustus home with her. And where were Augustus and Tecumseh Sherman?
Mrs. Stiles looked about the room. She saw no friendly faces, nobody to encourage her, nobody whom she could apply to in her distress. How hot it was! Could she not go over to the window and get a breath of air? The room was very crowded. Mrs. Stiles hesitated, half rose, hesitated again, and then got up and limped outside of the railings. People made way for her, and when she reached the window a dark-faced man gave her a place, and she went through a sort of parody of putting her head out into the air.
The dark man looked at her thoughtfully. "Shan't I get you a glass of water?" said he. Mrs. Stiles accepted his kindness with immense gratitude. The dark man went and brought the water, and watched her with a pair of very keen eyes while she was drinking it.