uld have, the most
remote suspicion of this Barratt's connection with the shop which she
had not accidentally entered; and the sudden appearance of this wretch
it was, at the very moment of finding herself charged with so vile and
degrading an offence, that contributed most of all to rob her of her
natural firmness, by suddenly revealing to her terrified heart the depth
of the conspiracy which thus yawned like a gulf below her. And not only
had this sudden horror, upon discovering a guilty design in what before
had seemed accident, and links uniting remote incidents which else
seemed casual and disconnected, greatly disturbed and confused her
manner, which confusion again had become more intense upon her own
consciousness that she _was_ confused, and that her manner was greatly
to her disadvantage; but--which was the worst effect of all, because the
rest could not operate against her, except upon those who were present
to witness it, whereas this was noted down and recorded--so utterly did
her confusion strip her of all presence of mind, that she did not
consciously notice (and consequently could not protest against at the
moment when it was most important to do so, and most natural) the
important circumstance of the muff. This capital objection, therefore,
though dwelt upon and improved to the utmost at the trial, was looked
upon by the judges as an after-thought; and merely because it had not
been seized upon by herself, and urged in the first moments of her
almost incapacitating terror on finding this amongst the circumstances
of the charge against her--as if an ingenuous nature, in the very act of
recoiling with horror from a criminal charge the most degrading, and in
the very instant of discovering, with a perfect rapture of alarm, the
too plausible appearance of probability amongst the circumstances, would
be likely to pause, and with attorney-like dexterity, to pick out the
particular circumstance that might admit of being _proved_ to be false,
when the conscience proclaimed, though in despondence for the result,
that all the circumstances were, as to the use made of them, one tissue
of falsehoods. Agnes, who had made a powerful effort in speaking of the
case at all, found her calmness increase as she advanced; and she now
told me, that in reality there were two discoveries which she made in
the same instant, and not one only, which had disarmed her firmness and
ordinary presence of mind. One I have mentioned--the