I led her out of the court into the air. As I passed the “bar,” I saw Ambrose, deadly pale, looking after us as we left him: the magistrate’s decision had evidently daunted him. His brother Silas had dropped in abject terror on the jailer’s chair; the miserable wretch shook and shuddered dumbly, like a cowed dog.
Miss Meadowcroft returned with us to the farm, preserving unbroken silence on the way back. I could detect nothing in her bearing which suggested any compassionate feeling for the prisoners in her stern and secret nature. On Naomi’s withdrawal to her own room, we were left together for a few minutes; and then, to my astonishment, the outwardly merciless woman showed me that she, too, was one of Eve’s daughters, and could feel and suffer, in her own hard way, like the rest of us. She suddenly stepped close up to me, and laid her hand on my arm.
“You are a lawyer, ain’t you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you had any experience in your profession?”
“Ten years’ experience.”
“Do you think—” She stopped abruptly; her hard face softened; her eyes dropped to the ground. “Never mind,” she said, confusedly. “I’m upset by all this misery, though I may not look like it. Don’t notice me.”
She turned away. I waited, in the firm persuasion that the unspoken question in her mind would sooner or later force its way to utterance by her lips. I was right. She came back to me unwillingly, like a woman acting under some influence which the utmost exertion of her will was powerless to resist.
“Do you believe John Jago is still a living man?”
She put the question vehemently, desperately, as if the words rushed out of her mouth in spite of her.