The tide of popular sentiment was turning in Elizabeth's favor. It had not been with her at first, in spite of her youth and the pathetic circumstances of her position; nay, against her all the more on that very account with many people, who feared a display of mawkish sentiment, and to whom the cold-blooded character of the crime stood out the more harshly, by contrast with her soft and girlish looks. But now one thing and another—an intangible something in her manner on the witness-stand; Gerard's return and his evidence on her behalf; his apparently unchanged devotion—all this had created a strong revulsion of feeling, which was increased rather than diminished by the District Attorney's charge.

The District Attorney was in a brutal mood. He did not spare Elizabeth, he left it, he said, to the jury to determine the weight of Gerard's evidence. For himself, he would not for the world suggest that a gentleman of Mr. Gerard's high character would testify falsely; yet he might be—mistaken; he might easily make some slight error in dates, misled by his—his interest in the defendant. While he talked Gerard bit his lip, inwardly cursing that dictate of civilization which had abolished duelling, and made even horsewhipping a doubtful expedient. Mrs. Bobby was considering ways by which one could be avenged on "a horrible man, not in society, whom one couldn't snub by not asking him to dinner, or anything of that kind." Elizabeth felt, with a new thrill of pain, that she was involving Gerard in her own disgrace. But Mr. Fenton surveyed the District Attorney unmoved through half-closed eyes, and said to himself coolly that he was going too far.

His own charge was a skillful defense of Gerard's evidence, a criticism, not too violent, of the District Attorney's brutality, and an appeal, not too open, to the sympathies of the jury. Elizabeth flushed as she realized that this was the point, after all; she was to be saved on issues that would not have been effectual with a man. And then the Judge's charge began, and she forgot all sense of humiliation, forgot everything but the thought that her fate hung in the balance, to be decided one way or the other by those carefully-balanced, judicial phrases. Did she imagine it, or was there, through all the calm analysis of evidence, the impartial weighing of this or that detail, a conviction of her innocence so decided that it made itself felt almost unconsciously?

"Strong on our side!" Bobby Van Antwerp's voice, unusually animated and exultant, sounded in his wife's ear at the end. "The prosecution are furious—they say it's horribly unfair. But of course, we won't quarrel with that."

Eleanor was deathly white; her hands were tightly locked together. At Bobby's words she gave a little sob of hysterical relief. "Oh, Bobby," she murmured, under her breath, "thank God that judges are human, after all! Now, if the jury are anything short of brutes, they'll acquit her at once and make an end of this."

But the jury fell short of this test of humanity, and retired to deliberate. Mrs. Bobby scanned their faces anxiously, as she had done at the beginning of the trial. They were care-worn and gloomy—naturally, with a woman's life in their hands; but surely—surely they should look happier, since it was in their power to save her?

"I wish, Bobby," she murmured, with that sob again in her throat, but this time not one of relief, "I wish we had tried if they wouldn't take money!"

"Don't, Eleanor," said Bobby. "They're all honest men—and besides, one can't do such things!" To himself he was thinking that women really seemed on such occasions as this to be entirely without principle, and yet that somehow one liked them all the better for it.

This was at two o'clock. Three, four, five o'clock came, and still they made no sign. The long deliberation seemed ominous to the anxious group who waited in a small, dark room on the ground floor of the court-house, starting at every sound and counting the moments as they dragged wearily along. Mr. Fenton and the other counsel came restlessly in and out, with a cheerful air that covered but indifferently their intense anxiety; Bobby and Julian Gerard stood by the window, talking occasionally in low tones, more often silent and gazing at the prison walls that rose up grimly before their eyes. Elizabeth sat at a small table in the middle of the room, and her aunts and Mrs. Van Antwerp sat around her in a forlorn circle. It was a long while since any one had spoken; all consoling suggestions were exhausted.

Elizabeth's hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes, wide-open yet unseeing, stared steadily before her. Vaguely she was conscious that there were people in the room, that by the window stood the man whose presence might have mattered more to her at some other time than anything else on earth; that her aunts and Eleanor Van Antwerp were beside her, and would bend forward now and then, one or other of them, to press her hand. In a dull, mechanical way, she was thankful to know that they were there; yet nothing they said or did could help her, a great gulf seemed to yawn between her and the outside world.... It is thus, perhaps, that the dying feel when they see, with their failing sight, the faces of friends, and know that even love is powerless to reach them. Elizabeth suffered, during those hours of suspense, the agony of death a hundred times over. But as the afternoon wore on, hope faded and the numbness of despair crept over her tortured nerves.

"I don't like their staying out so long," Bobby Van Antwerp could not help murmuring to Gerard. "After the charge, I thought they'd let her off at once. They all want to—that's certain. But there were one or two of them who looked—infernally conscientious."

"I don't want any of them"—Gerard began, but stopped. "To go against his convictions," was what he had meant to add, but the words remained unspoken. There are limits to even a Puritan conscience. "Good God! Bobby," he whispered, hoarsely, "a man who could convict her deserves to be shot!"

"I agree with you, old man," said Bobby, tranquilly. And then they once more fell silent, and the shadows lengthened, and some one lit a feeble gas-jet, which brought out, in ghastly relief, the look of strained expectancy on each face.

At six o'clock there was a rustle, an excitement. Mr. Fenton came in and spoke to Bobby, and he spoke to his wife. She touched Elizabeth on the shoulder. "Dear, we—we go up now," she said. Elizabeth rose and mechanically put up her hand to her hair.

"Do I look all right?" she said, and then smiled vaguely at the commonplace question. A merciful stupor had descended upon her in the last hour; when she looked at her aunts, she saw that they were suffering far more than she. "I am not frightened," she said, "please don't be frightened." She was determined that she would be brave. This was the thought uppermost in her mind.

They went up to the court-room, and on the threshold Mr. Fenton said to her: "Remember, that even if the verdict is—is unfavorable, it is not final. We shall appeal." She bent her head, wondering mechanically that any one should speak of things to happen after the verdict. Her whole life seemed bounded by the events of the next few minutes; she could not look beyond.... The thought crossed her mind of how slight a thing would decide her fate—the difference between one word or two, guilty or not guilty. A mere trifle—a word in three letters; yet all the difference between honor and dishonor, life and death. Her mind fastened upon the irrelevant detail and dallied with it; the while she was conscious, with sickening intensity, of each movement in the court-room—the breathless atmosphere of a suspense, in which the mere rustling of a paper jarred upon the nerves; the jury filing in, the formal opening question, "Gentlemen of the jury, have you decided upon your verdict?" Her throat was parched, balls of fire danced before her eyes, there was a sound in her ears like the rushing of many waters. Guilty or not guilty? One word or two? The question beat upon her brain with a dull persistence, and she was conscious, vaguely, that the answer was of vital importance, but somehow she could not bring herself to realize it.

"Not Guilty."

The words rang clear and confident, across that gulf which separated her from the outside world. As through a mist she saw the relief on the faces of those around her, but still she herself was conscious of no feeling. She still sat white and dazed, staring before her, while her lips moved mechanically, repeating the words that seemed so meaningless: "Not Guilty."

There was a pause, and then a stir, a murmur of relief. Some women sobbed aloud. But she herself still sat staring before her, repeating the answer that seemed to have no meaning: "Not Guilty."