Once more Mrs. Allen was put upon the stand to undergo the questions which had been so fruitless with the doctor. It was this point of the case alone which struck terror to the prisoner. When a question was asked which apparently threatened to drag her husband's name through that tortuous investigation, her lips would blanch and her eyes fill with sharp anxiety. Thus her face gleamed out white and ghastly when Mrs. Allen was put under the torture of new questions. The mother looked at her gravely, and turned to the judge; but when the attorney proceeded with his interrogations, she answered simply:

"I am her mother. Let me go."

They did let her go. The attorney had no heart to press that pale, tortured woman farther, and became generous, partly from humanity, partly because there was something in the face of his witness which warned him that nothing short of death would force her to speak. Unfortunately he had evidence enough, and could afford to take this poor mother from the rack of his questions.

When this danger was over, the prisoner fell back into her previous state of gentle resignation. So long as her husband's reputation was safe, so long as his name was kept out of the proceedings, she had no feeling of resistance.

The business of the court went on. All the details of that strange death and burial, so far as known evidence could give them, were laid before the court. The prisoner heard them like one in a dream. Once or twice she lifted those mournful eyes as some detail struck suddenly on her remembrance; but the connecting links being deficient in her mind, baffled its consciousness. Then a change came upon the court. The witness stand was empty, and a tall, hard-faced man stood before the judge, pledging himself to prove her guilt. Katharine heard him with a sort of dreary amazement. How sturdily he denounced her. How bitter were his words. How cruelly sharp those dark eyes as they turned from the jury to her face. Poor thing, it seemed very cruel. What had she done that a strong man should hunt her to death with his words.

Then another man arose. She knew him, for he had visited her in prison. The look which he cast upon her was full of compassion. He pleaded for her like one inspired. His face was pale with emotion—his voice faltered and his eyes filled when he turned to make a last appeal to the twelve men who held her life in their hands. In the midst of this appeal, Katharine came out of her dream and began to weep from self pity. Her sufferings all rose vividly before her, but it seemed another person she was pitying, not herself. She met the softened glances turned toward the place where she sat with tender sympathy, as if they were all deploring the misery of some third person. Thus, a faint glow shone out from the pallor of her face, which deepened the sentiment in her behalf.

Then the judge arose with his face to the jury. His voice was slow and grave, his countenance sad. She could not comprehend him. He was neither stern like her enemy, nor pathetic like her friend. Still, under his seriousness she felt that some pity for her youth existed. When he sat down she gave him a long, sorrowful look, which he broke by lifting one hand to his face as if those eyes troubled him.

The twelve men arose and went out, one after another, like mourners at a funeral. Then a murmur ran through the court, and suppressed whispers went from lip to lip. She knew that these men held her life, but could not realize that their fiat was so near. Time went by. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, for aught she knew, since those men had left their seats empty. The court was still thronged. The judge sat in his arm-chair, shrouding his face with one hand.

A faint bustle. The twelve men glided into their old places, and a voice, deep, solemn, and stern, spoke out:

"Prisoner, look upon the jury—jury, look upon the prisoner."

Katharine stood up. Those twelve men met her mournful gaze with shrinking glances.

"Guilty, or not guilty?"

"Guilty! But not of murder in the first degree. Not guilty unto death!"

There was a hushed tumult in the crowd. Those who looked upon her face rejoiced that she was saved the last penalty. Some muttered bitterly against the verdict, and grew indignant with the jury for depriving them of a death spectacle; and a few said, in their hearts, this verdict is unjust—that young creature is innocent.

Katharine sat down; a band, hard and firm as iron, that had seemed tightening around her heart all the day, broke, and flooded her being with tears. Poor, poor child! she had been so afraid to die. Amid all her heroism, there was a perpetual dread, which made her gentle nature shrink from the horror before her. Besides, death would take her away from him, perhaps, forever and ever. This thought had been the most cruel of all. But it was over now. They would not take her life—she might see him again—he would love her all the better for having shielded his name from this trouble and disgrace; at any rate, she would not die, she would not die.

Overwhelmed with these feelings, she heard nothing that was going on in the court, but sat with her hands clasped and quivering in her lap, while the tears fell, drop by drop, down her cheeks, whispering:

"I live! I live! and shall see him again!"

A voice called forth her name, commanding her to stand up and hear the sentence of the court.

She arose, supporting herself by the railing, for the last few moments had left her very weak. Her eyes were full of tears. She saw the judge through a mist, and his words sounded from a great distance.

"Condemned to sit upon a gallows, erected on the public common of New Haven, for one hour, with a halter around your neck; and, after that, to be confined in the State's Prison, at Simsbury Mines, during eight years."

She heard words of kindly encouragement and entreaty to use the mercy extended by the court as a means of repentance. Her great sin, unnatural cruelty. Time for reformation—fragments like these floated by her, but they left no impression. She only comprehended one thing—they had given her life! life! life! life!

She sunk on her knees as the judge ceased, buried her face on the criminal's seat—and thanked God that he had permitted her to live. The old widow had sat through it all quiet—as great suffering most frequently is—pale as death, but with a certain stern fortitude which a Spartan mother might have felt without shame. When the jury came in she arose with slow unconsciousness, and stood upright in the presence of the court, her gray eyes heavy with anguish, her white lips parted in an agony of suspense. Guilty, but not unto death. She lifted her clasped hands feebly upward, and fell back, sobbing like a little child.