CHAPTER VIII

THE LAST DAY OF THE TRIAL

After the restless crowd--craning necks; shifting feet, half-caught
sentences--excited, alert, like a nervous horse dancing at a shadow,
ready at the vaguest rumor to rush into a sensation, how quiet,
prosaic, and even peaceful the court room seemed! That morning when we
entered it was only partly filled, and in the space behind the railing
the clerk of the court was scribbling, the lawyers were lolling,
certain individuals looking like janitors were wandering idly about,
and at his high desk the judge was writing steadily, his fine, white
hand moving across the paper, his eyes now and then glancing aside as
if he were thinking and paying no attention at all to what was going on
in the room around him. It was reassuring in a way, as if after all
nothing remarkable were going to happen.

Some women came in all in a group, among them Hallie Ferguson, her
mother hanging back in her wake, as if she were being towed along in
spite of herself. Hallie came over to where we sat, and began to
whisper in my ear some long story of something which she was deeply
absorbed in at the moment. This, too, had a habitual and pleasant
feeling about it. Even when, with a black veil over her face, sweeping
in folds down the length of her dress, the Spanish Woman came in, it
was hard to believe that she was that same terrible creature who had
stood before me only the day before yesterday telling me I should never
leave her house.

She took one of the chairs which had been placed along the wall, so
that instead of facing the judge's desk, she fronted the crowd, and
threw her veil back. She looked white, whiter than I had ever seen
her, as if she were deeply powdered, and this had the effect of a mask.
I have never seen a human face so calm or so indifferently sweet as
hers, and she sat as motionless as if she had been carved there. One
heard the whisperings around the room, saw the nudges and the twisting
of heads, but it was as if she did not see or know them. Then the
interest of the room turned toward the door. With that queer instinct
of a crowd, which knows before it sees, the whole room know that the
prisoner was coming before there was a glimpse of him visible.

He walked up the aisle, looking remarkably fresh and calm, as if he
were here on the merest matter of business. As soon as he was seated
he turned his head and glanced behind him, and I thought his eyes
rested first on tha