First postscript, in a tremulous hand, "Pray."
Second postscript, in a firm hand, "Drain the water."
Houseman shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Drain the water? Let the crown do that. We should but fish up more trouble. And prayers quo' she! 'Tis not prayers we want, but evidence."
He sent his clerk off to travel post night and day, and subpœna Mercy, and bring her back with him to the trial. She was to have every comfort on the road, and be treated like a duchess.
The evening before the assizes, Mrs. Gaunt's apartments were Mr. Houseman's head-quarters, and messages were coming and going all day, on matters connected with the defence.
Just at sunset, up rattled a post-chaise, and the clerk got out and came haggard and bloodshot before his employer. "The witness has disappeared, sir. Left home last Tuesday, with her child, and has never been seen nor heard of since."
Here was a terrible blow. They all paled under it: it seriously diminished the chances of an acquittal.
But Mrs. Gaunt bore it nobly. She seemed to rise under it.
She turned to Sir George Neville, with a sweet smile. "The noble heart sees base things noble. No wonder then an artful woman deluded you. He has left England with her, and condemned me to the gallows, in cold blood. So be it. I shall defend myself."
She then sat down with Mr. Houseman, and went through the written case he had prepared for her, and showed him notes she had taken of full a hundred criminal trials great and small.