"Oh! it wasn't a Sister; it was Anita," said Mr. Macon. "My wife went with the child, and stood by her all the time. It was Anita who took all the things from the carriage while my wife was talking with Sister Cecilia in the garden; and the girl counted and examined every package."
"She must have been terrified to death, that poor little lamb!" exclaimed F. Chevreuse, rising to walk about the room. "I think I should have been there with her. I would have gone if I had known. You keep too much from me, Mr. Macon. I known that you and others do this from kindness; but you must remember that it isn't for me to be cowardly and shrink like a baby. I'm not sure but I should feel better to be in the midst of it all than to be shut up here suffering the torments of suspense."
"You had a great deal better have nothing to do with it," his friend said decidedly. "You are not needed. F. O'Donovan was in court with Anita and my wife, and there was a body-guard of Catholics all about to make room for them going and coming. It was hard for the poor child; but what she felt most was not being in a crowd, and obliged to speak in public; she did not appear to think of that; but the thought that what she must say might bring trouble on any one almost overpowered her. She excited a great deal of sympathy. While she spoke, you could have heard a pin drop in the room."
"After all," F. Chevreuse said, catching at a consolation, "it won't hurt any of them to see one of God's snow-drops; and she is no more tender than many a martyr of the church has been."
Mr. Macon's brief story did not give any idea of the sensation produced in court by the appearance of this child, who was as strange to such a scene as if she had been, indeed, a wild flower brought from some profound forest solitude. Her beauty, the dazzling paleness of her face, from which the large eyes looked full of anguish and fear, the flower-like drooping of her form as she leaned on Mrs. Macon's supporting arm—all startled the most hardened spectator into sympathy. Careless and callous as they might have been, feeding on excitement as a drunkard takes his draught, ever stronger and stronger as his taste becomes deadened, each one seemed to realize for a moment how terrible a thing it is to see a human life at stake, and to have influence to destroy or to save it. If she had been a relative or personal friend to the accused, the impression would have been less deep; but the fact that she would have shown the same painful solicitude for any one of them may have stirred in their consciences some sense of their own heartlessness. They made way for her, and listened in breathless silence to hear what she would say. Her very distress lent a silvery clearness to her voice, usually so low and soft, and every word was heard as plainly as the notes of a small bird chirping when its nest is attacked.
"All I know, your honor, is this: Mrs. Macon drove about Crichton to ask for things for the convent; and Mother Ignatia let me go out to bring in the parcels she brought, because it pleased me. I always set down on a slip of paper a list of the articles, and the day of the month she brought them, and some of the Sisters helped me, and looked on. But this time no one but me did anything, for it was the day after Mother Chevreuse was killed, and everybody was in great trouble. Mrs. Macon said, when she came, that she had spent the night before at Madison with her sister there, and started early in her phaeton to beg for us, and had heard nothing of the news till she reached Crichton late in the afternoon. Then she drove straight to us; and, when she got out of the phaeton, she ran to Sister Cecilia, and they threw themselves into each other's arms, and began to cry. We were all crying, but I went to take the parcels out of the phaeton, because I wanted to do something. And I made a list of them, because I always had, and I carried them up-stairs. And I knew just how everything looked, because I tried to think of my work and not of Mother Chevreuse. And I do know surely that the gray shawl which was laid over our lounge was brought that day. I saw the piece torn out of the corner, and, when they arranged it for a cover, they turned the torn corner behind. That is all, your honor, except that Miss Carthusen came to the convent one day, and, when I went into the parlor, she was examining the shawl, and she said she did it because there was one like it missing out of their house. And I hope," said this simple creature, rising, in her earnestness, from Mrs. Macon's arm, and leaning imploringly toward the judge—"I hope that what I have said will not hurt anybody nor be used against anybody. And I ask Mr. Schöninger to forgive me if what I have said displeases him; for, if it should do him harm, I shall be unhappy about it as long as I live."
No one said a word as the girl was led, trembling and half fainting, out of the court-room. The prisoner regarded her with astonishment while she spoke, and when she turned toward him her pitiful face, and made her appeal for forgiveness, he bowed, and a slight involuntary motion of his hands looked as if he would fain have supported her drooping form. Never had he seen so simple and so impassioned a creature. An angel taking its first flight out of the white peacefulness of heaven, and looking for the first time on the miseries of earth, could scarcely have shown a more shrinking and terrified pity than had been displayed by this young girl, drawn from her peaceful convent home to the arena where crime and justice struggle for the mastery. And yet that pure and tender child had given him a terrible blow. Perhaps he felt that her testimony was important, simple as the story she told seemed to be; for his face grew deathly pale, and for the first time during the trial he lost that air of scornful security which he had sustained so far. Averting his face slightly, he seemed to be studying out some problem, and, as he thought, the faint lines between his brows grew deeper, and those sitting near him could see the veins in his temples swelling and throbbing with the stress of some sudden emotion.
The next morning F. Chevreuse went out to make sick-calls after his Mass was over, and returned quite convinced that his friends had been right in advising him to remain in-doors. Everybody he met gazed at him, as if trying to read in his face what thought or feeling he might be striving to hide; people turned to look after him; and groups of excited talkers became silent as he approached, only to resume their conversation with increased vehemence when he had passed. He had been obliged to check the wordy sympathy of some and the angry denunciations of others, who thought to please him by wishing ill to Mr. Schöninger; and more than once his heart had been wrung by some loud lament over his lost mother.
"You were right," he said to F. O'Donovan when he went in. "I will not go out again unless there is need of it."