"I do not imagine that Mr. Schöninger was saying his beads," Mr. Macon said rather dryly. "He was undoubtedly in trouble. He certainly had always an air of calmness, but to my mind it was not an air of contentment. He gave me the impression of a person who has some secret locked up in his mind. This affair of the contested inheritance explains it."
"Poor fellow!" F. Chevreuse said again, and leaned back in his chair. "He has got to have all his private affairs dragged up for discussion, and his looks and actions commented on by the curious. That is the worst of such a trial. A man fancies that he has been living a quiet, private life, and he finds that he has all the time been in a glass case with everybody watching him. The simplest things are distorted, and a mountain is built up out of nothing, and that without any wrong intention either, but simply by the curiosity and misconceptions of people."
Mr. Macon said nothing. He respected the priest's charity, but, for himself, he reserved his decision till the judge should have pronounced. He was not enthusiastic for Mr. Schöninger, nor prejudiced against him; he simply waited to see what would be proved, and had no doubt that the truth would triumph.
On the second day the trial progressed rapidly, approaching a vital point. Mr. Schöninger had not slept the night before the death of Mother Chevreuse, but had been heard walking and moving about his room till morning. Miss Carthusen, whose chamber was next his, gave this piece of information, and added that the next morning the prisoner looked very pale, and scarcely tasted his breakfast. She spoke with evident reluctance, and subjoined an explanation which had not been asked. "I noticed and remembered it, because I had heard of his suit in England, and was afraid it might be going against him."
She glanced nervously at the prisoner, and met a look wherein a softer ray seemed to penetrate the searching coldness. Perhaps he was touched to learn that one for whom he had cared so little had, without his suspecting it, sympathized with him, and been kindly observant of his ways.
On being questioned, she said that Mr. Schöninger had not come home the next night. They had expected him, because he usually told them when he was to be absent; but did not think very strange of it, as he was due early the next day at the town of Madison, where he went every week to give lessons, and where he sometimes went overnight. The last she saw of him that night was at Mrs. Ferrier's. They had a rehearsal there, and he had excused himself early, saying that he had an engagement, and left alone before any of the company.
Being further questioned, she admitted having seen that he took with him from his boarding-house the shawl that he habitually wore on chilly evenings.
A shawl was shown her, and she was asked if she recognized it.
"It was not easy to recognize any one among all the gray shawls there were in the world," she replied rather flippantly, "but Mr. Schöninger's was like that; she should think it might be his."
As she went out, the witness passed quite near the prisoner, and looked at him imploringly; but he took no notice of her. She paused an instant, then, bursting into tears, hurried out through the crowd, clinging to the arm of her adopted father. Lily Carthusen found herself far more deeply involved than she had intended. In a moment of pique and jealousy she had entertained and encouraged this accusation, and even insinuated that she could tell some things if she would; but it was one thing to suspect privately, and make peevish boasts which attracted to her the attention she so dearly loved, and quite another to face the terrible reality where a man was being tried for his life and she swearing against him.