“Our turn has come,” said Lansing to Patience on the morning after the expert testimony was concluded. “We are confident of success now.”

“But the facts are hideous, and they have painted me black.”

“Mr. Bourke scraped off a good deal, and he’ll have the rest off before he gets through. If he could only make that lying woman open her mouth! You’ve borne yourself splendidly. Keep in good condition for the witness stand. Are you frightened?”

“No,” she said, smiling at Bourke gratefully. “Not a bit.”

Simms opened the case for the defence.

He had a harsh strident voice. He gesticulated as if practising for a prize fight, doubling back and springing forward. He cleared his throat with vicious emphasis and rasped his heels upon the floor. His statements were dry and matter-of-fact, his language bald; but he made a direct vigorous and enthusiastic speech. The jury was informed that it was there to save the life of one of the most brilliant and high-minded young women of the age,—a woman utterly incapable of murder or of any violent act, a woman with the mild and meditative mind of the student. That it would be proved not only that she was far too clever to take life by such clumsy methods, but that she had no object, as she had gained her liberty, and the lover was a myth. The whole prosecution was a malignant and personal prosecution of an innocent but too gifted woman by an absurdly conceited family that had resented her superior intelligence. This and much more of fact and fancy. But Patience, with perverse feminity, liked him none the better, and would not even look at him when he sat down.

Mr. Field was the first witness for the defence. Although compelled under cross-examination to admit the prisoner’s interest in subtle poisons, he managed to convey to the jury that it was merely the result of an unusually brilliant and inquiring mind, a thought born of the moment, of his suggestion. He gave the highest tribute to her cleverness, her work on his paper, and to her reputation.

Latimer Burr was called next, and spoke with enthusiasm of her “unfailing submission to a man of abominable and savage temper until submission ceased to be a virtue.” He had never heard her utter any threats to kill. Yes, it was true that he had engaged counsel for defence. He believed in her thoroughly.

Miss Merrien, her landlady, and Mrs. Blair were put on the stand next morning, and the good character they gave Patience was unshaken by the nagging of the district attorney. Mr. Tarbox testified to her demeanour of innocence during her imprisonment.

“But the defence is weak all the same,” whispered Patience to Lansing. “Not a word can be said in rebuttal. Only Mr. Bourke’s eloquence can save me.”

“Good character goes a long way,” replied Lansing. “You have no idea of its weight with a jury, particularly with a jury of this kind.”

Patience was put on the witness stand next. The supreme effort to overcome nervousness gave her an icy and repellent demeanour. Never had she held her back as erect, her head as high. She kept her eyelids half lowered, and spoke with scarcely any change of inflection. She told the story of the night as she had told it in rehearsal many times. There had been a quarrel an hour before she heard the deceased get up and go to the lavatory. She offered to drop his morphine, and he replied with an oath that she should never do another thing for him as long as he lived, that he hoped she would leave the house by the first train next morning. His sudden silence upon his return to his bed excited her apprehension, and she called the family.

When Bourke sat down and the district attorney arose and confronted her she shivered suddenly. Bourke’s rich strong voice and kind magnetic gaze had given her courage, but this man with his eyes like grey ice, his mechanical smile, and cold smooth voice conjured up a sudden awful picture of the execution room at Sing Sing. Her insight appreciated with exactitude the pitiless ambition of the man, knew that he stood pledged to his future to send her to her death. He made her admit all the damning facts of the evidence against her, the facts which stood out like phosphorescent letters on a black wall, and to acknowledge her abhorrence of the man that had been her husband. But all this had been anticipated: at least he could not confuse her.

Again two days and a part of a third were monopolised by experts. These two illustrious chemists testified, through the same bewildering mass of detail as that employed by their equally illustrious predecessors, that there was not enough morphine in Beverly Peele’s stomach to kill a cat.

There was a short interval, after the second expert had been permitted to leave the stand, during which Bourke and Simms and Lansing conferred together, preparatory to the summing up of the former. As Bourke was about to rise, the district attorney stood up, cleared his throat, and said: “One moment, please. Will Miss Honora Mairs kindly take the stand?”

Bourke was on the alert in an instant. “The case for the prosecution has closed,” he said.

“This is by special permission of the Court,” replied the district attorney, coldly.

As Honora ascended the stand there was a deep murmur of admiration. She looked like an angel, nothing less. She wore a white lawn frock, girt with a blue sash; a large white leghorn lined with azure velvet, against which the baby gold of her hair shone softly. Her great blue eyes had the clear calm serenity of a young child. Patience drew her breath in a series of short gasps. Bourke sat with clenched hands.

“We understand,” said the district attorney, severely, “that you did not tell all you knew the other day, and that you have signified your willingness to now tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Is this true?”

Honora bowed her head with an expression of deep humility, as a child might that had been justly rebuked.

“You had not slept at all upon that fatal night?”

“No.”

“Your door was open?”

“Yes.”

“You did see somebody enter the lavatory?”

“Yes.”

“Whom did you see?”

There was a moment’s breathless silence, during which Patience wondered if a clock had ever ticked so loudly, or if the sun had ever shone with so vicious a glare.

“Whom did you see?” repeated the district attorney.

“The prisoner.”

“What did she do?”

“She dropped some thirty or forty drops of morphine, I should say, then half filled the glass with water, as usual.”

“You did not see the deceased go to the lavatory that night.”

“No.”

“Nor any one else until the defendant called you?”

“No.”

“That is all.”

Mr. Bourke sprang to his feet, his nostrils dilating, his fine face quivering with unassumed scorn and indignation.

“You admit that you perjured yourself the other day?”

“I could not make up my mind to—”

“Never mind what you had not made up your mind to do. You admit that you perjured yourself?”

“Yes,” gently.

“That in other words you lied.”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice was like the quiver of a violin.

“What proof are we to have that you are not lying now?”

“I am not lying. My conscience gave me no rest.”

“It will give you more, I suppose, if you will have succeeded in swearing away the life of an innocent woman. Yes, yes!—Exactly how long did Mrs. Peele remain in the lavatory?”

“I cannot remember. Five or ten minutes.”

“State the exact time.”

“Perhaps five.”

“And a few moments later when she ran into your room you pretended to be asleep: Why did you assume sleep; what reason had you for lying at that time?”

“I had dropped off.”

“You had been sufficiently wide awake five minutes before to note precisely all these other things, and then had promptly fallen into a sound sleep. Is that your usual habit?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you speak to the prisoner when she came into the lavatory?”

“No.”

“Were not you in the habit of holding a conversation with her upon such occasions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did you not address her on that night?”

“I was very sleepy, and had nothing in particular to say.”

“But you were not too sleepy to note carefully all the details in the evidence you have just given. You can go,—and to the devil,” he muttered. He thrust his hands into his pockets and wheeled about, looking at Patience with such intensity of gaze that she moved suddenly forward. Her face was pale, but her eyes blazed with rage. Bourke glanced at the clock.

“It is twenty minutes to one,” he said. “I would ask your honour to adjourn until two. I must have time to digest this new testimony. Its remarkable glibness prevented me from giving it the running deliberation that it demanded.”

The judge sulkily dismissed the court. As Patience passed out of the room with Tarbox she heard the word “angel” more than once, and knew that it did not refer to her.

Patience was not conscious of fear as she ate her luncheon. Her heart was black with rage. “I’d willingly murder her,” she thought, “and my conscience wouldn’t trouble me the least little bit.”