The crowded court was deathly still. Irene gripped her husband’s hand, looking now at the denunciatory, attitudes of the speaker, now at the intense steel of the denounced man’s eyes, now at the set faces of the jury as they sat under the spell of the fierce oratory.
“Gerard—they will kill him. I see condemnation in their eyes,” she whispered, hoarsely.
“Damn them,” he answered, carried away by the excitement, “I believe they will.”
“Can nothing human save him?”
“I would give ten years of my life.”
She tightened her clasp on his great hand by way of sympathy and acknowledgment. A little sound of sobbing was heard. It came from a lady next but one to Irene—Mrs. Gardiner—the wife of Hugh’s counsel and friend. Irene was dry-eyed. Suddenly she felt strong, with her young blood thrilling through her veins. Again she whispered.
“Gerard—would you give all you held most dear in the world?”
“Of course,” he replied.
The sonorous voice went on.
“The defence have called no witnesses. There are none to call. Let them prove that the prisoner was elsewhere between eleven o’clock and seven on that fatal night—even between one and five, the limits set by the medical evidence—and the case falls to the ground. But they cannot do so. It has been hinted that a woman’s honour is in question. That will be urged in his defence. But does the woman live who is so vile, so despicable as to let her reputation stand in the way of saving an innocent man from the most shameful of deaths? It is unthinkable. Human nature does not sink to such degradation of cowardice. When that blow was struck the prisoner was in no woman’s arms.”