The other nodded his head.
"I hope she behaved well?" he added painfully.
Another nod. "Yes; as well as one could expect her to."
"The Ferriers, too, and Lawrence?"
"Yes; but their testimony was not of any great consequence."
The testimony of the Ferrier family was, however, entirely favorable to the prisoner, and they had mentioned him with such respect and kindness as to visibly affect him, and to create a sort of diversion in his favor. The wealth and style of the party, the manner in which they took possession, as it were, of the court-room, with several gentlemen clearing the path before them, made an impression. When they went out, the prisoner looked at them with a faint smile as they passed. Annette smiled in return, and Lawrence bowed with scrupulous respect and friendliness; but Mrs. Ferrier, rustling in voluminous silks, down which her rich sables slipped loosely, leaned over the bar, and, in the face of the whole court and crowd of spectators, shook hands with Mr. Schöninger, and, in a voice audible to the whole company, made with him an appointment which hovered strangely between the tragical and the absurd.
"Come to my house the minute you are out of this terrible place," she said. "Don't go anywhere else." Then she flounced out, wiping her eyes, and tossing her head disdainfully at the judge, the lawyers, and the crowd, whom she held to be, severally and collectively, to blame for these unjust and impertinent proceedings.
"You know, mamma," Annette said, "the judge has to listen to everybody, and it isn't his fault if people are accused. And Mr. Wilson is obliged to make out his case, if he can, and to ask a great many questions. Some things that seem to us trivial may have a good deal of importance in a case like this. You must remember that a law-court is quite different from a drawing-room, where people cannot be too inquisitive without being checked."
"I shall take care that none of them come to my drawing-room again," retorted the mother with spirit. "To think of that Mr. Wilson, who has been at my house to dinner, telling me to try to remember something that he knew I had forgotten or didn't want to tell! You may depend upon it, Annette, that man has a spite against poor Mr. Schöninger. It is as plain as day that he is raking up all he can against him. I shouldn't be surprised if the scamp were to hire men to tell lies about him. He looks capable of it. And then, to question me about what Mr. Schöninger had over his shoulder when he came to my house, and what time it was when he went away, and to show me that trumpery old gray shawl—if that is the majesty of the law, I don't want to see any more majesty. The object—and a most ridiculous and slanderous object it is, too—is to find out if Mr. Schöninger, as fine a gentleman as ever lived, broke into a priest's house, and murdered a lady and a saint, and stole a little package of dirty one-dollar bills. That's what they pretend to want to find out; and why don't they find it out in the proper way? It needn't take 'em long, I should think. But no! they must poke their noses into people's private affairs, asking every kind of impudent question, and making you say things twice, and then asking if you are sure, and then telling you that it's no matter what your opinion is about things; as if I hadn't a right to an opinion! They want to make money, and dawdle out a case as long as they can—that's what they want. And as for the curiosity of women, it's nothing! It takes a man to cross-question."
"O mamma, mamma!" sighed Annette, with smiling indulgence.