The attorney-general cross-examined. In no particular could he shake her statement. Why had she not come forward before? She urged the scandal, the pain to her husband, the overmastering hope, grown to conviction, that the evidence against the prisoner was too slight to harm him.
“How did he enter your house?”
“He had a latch-key always in his possession.”
“Was this the first time it had been used for this purpose?”
She set her teeth and answered, “No.” Gardiner re-examined. No third party was aware of the existence of this liaison. The utmost precaution and secrecy had been maintained. Was her husband in court? Yes. She went down the steps and back to her place like one in a dream. Gerard remained motionless by her side, as if unconscious of her presence.
Gardiner, wishing to have corroborative evidence, sought permission to call Merriam. The latter assented, went into the witness-box. Irene’s heart fluttered faintly with happiness. Gerard had accepted the sacrifice. He would play his part as she had done hers. Yet his face was clouded and heavy and he answered doggedly, with the air of a man who has formed a resolve in the caverns of his soul.
He was absent in Edinburgh on the night in question. For some time past he had been uneasy as regards his wife’s relations with Colman. The revelation was not an absolute surprise to him. Colman had been, for many years, almost a member of his household. By virtue of the intimacy he possessed a latch-key. No further questions were put. The opposite side declined to cross-examine. Gerard, looking neither to right nor left, walked out of the court.
Irene was left alone. She could not understand Gerard’s neglect. Surely he meant her to follow. She rose and took a sweeping survey of the scene. Counsel were whispering eagerly. The jury crowded together in animated discussion, the front row leaning over the backs of the seats. Many eyes were fixed admiringly upon herself. The judge, seen in obscured profile, was turning over his notes. The air still seemed impregnated with the odour of the gaol. Hugh sat in the dock, his face still buried in his arms, in an attitude of supreme dejection. And behind him stood his blue-habited imperturbable guards. Then, with bowed head, she hurried across the court, leaving by the door through which Gerard had disappeared.
He was not outside, in the witnesses’ lobby, waiting for her as she had expected. She enquired of the policeman on duty. He had seen him pass, pointed out the way he had gone. She followed his directions, found herself in the courtyard. Gerard was nowhere to be seen. She hung about for a while, went outside and walked up and down the hurrying pavement, waited again by the entrance. But no Gerard. Disappointed and anxious, she retraced her steps, up worn bleak stairs, through gloomy corridors, and finally lost herself completely. But she hurried on with downcast eyes. At last she arrived at an entrance guarded by a policeman. It was not the door with which she was familiar. A sudden failing seized her. She could not return to her seat and present herself alone before the gaze of all those men. The valiantest of women has small feminine cowardices, which she does not seek to overcome. To leave the precincts was equally impossible. She resolved to wait, and walked bravely up and down the lobby. A few patient figures of men and women were sitting by the wall. Scarcely speculating who these might be, she sat down finally by an old man, poorly clad, who was leaning forward, his chin supported on his hands, regarding the pavement with lack-lustre eyes. Then for the first time she was able to think with some coherence of the stupendous nature of the deed she had just committed. She put her ungloved hands over her burning eyes as if to shut out the scene that had blazed before them a few moments ago. The words of the counsel, her own replies, reverberated distinct in her ears. She would have given a year of her life for Gerard’s protecting presence.
So absorbed was she that she did not hear a rough voice call out a strange name, nor notice the old man by her side rise in weary obedience to the summons. When, later, she withdrew her hands from her face, she did not heed his absence. Now and then a barrister or a document-laden clerk hurried past her. She waited in a torture of anxiety. At last the policeman approached and asked her if she was a witness in this case. Her reply gave him a clue to her interest. He smiled indulgently. This was the witnesses’ lobby of the Recorder’s Court. The Sunnington case was being tried in the chief court, before the judge; just the other end of the Old Bailey. Irene stamped her foot with vexation. Suspense had made her lose count of time. It seemed as if she had been absent for hours. What had happened? She must know. And here she had been waiting, like a fool, in a wrong part of the building.