Suddenly he seemed to leap forward.
“Unfortunate child! Confess.”
That forced her to lift her head and face him, yet still she did not speak. It was the strength of despair. She could not endure much more.
“Who is your husband?” he thundered at her.
She rose wildly, terror-stricken. It was terror that dominated her, not of the stern judge, for she took a faltering step toward him, lifting a shaking hand, but of some one or of some thing far more terrible than any punishment she could have received in the sentence of a court. Still she was not proof against the judge's will. She had weakened, and the terror must have been because of that weakening.
“Who is the Mormon who visits you?” he thundered, relentlessly.
“I—never—knew—his—name.
“But you'd know his face. I'll arrest every Mormon in this country and bring him before you. You'd know his face?”
“Oh, I wouldn't. I COULDN'T TELL!... I—NEVER—SAW HIS FACE—IN THE LIGHT!”
The tragic beauty of her, the certainty of some monstrous crime to youth and innocence, the presence of an agony and terror that unfathomably seemed not to be for herself—these transfixed the court and the audience, and held them silenced, till she reached out blindly and then sank in a heap to the floor.