ommit a
misdemeanor. The People will show that on the eleventh day of March of
this year the defendant, while operating an automobile on the highways
of this county in a reckless and lawless manner, killed John Drummond, a
traffic policeman, who was attempting to arrest her. Drummond, whose
ante-mortem statement will be put in evidence----"

Suddenly Lydia's attention lapsed. This man who was trying to send her
to prison had held her in his arms. She saw again the moon and the mist,
and felt his firm hand on her shoulder. Memory seemed more real than
this incredible reality. Then, just as steel doors shut on the red fire
of a furnace, so her mind shut out this aspect of the situation, and she
found she was listening--after how long a pause she did not know--to
O'Bannon's words.

"----at the entrance to the village the road divides, the right fork
turning back at an angle something less than a right angle. Round this
corner the defendant attempted to go by a device known as skidding a
car; that is to say, still going at a high rate of speed, she turned her
wheels sharply to the right and put on her brakes hard enough to lock
the back wheels."

"Yes, my friend," thought Lydia, "that's the way it's done. I wonder how
many times you've skidded your own car to know so much about it."

"This procedure," O'Bannon's voice continued, "which is always a
somewhat reckless performance, was in this case criminal. With the
officer known to be overlapping her car on the left, she might as well
have picked up her car and struck him with it. Her car did so strike
him, smashing his motorcycle to bits and causing the hideous injuries of
which he died within a few hours."

Lydia closed her eyes. She saw that mass of bloodstained khaki and steel
lying in the road and heard her own footsteps beating on the macadam.

"The People will prove that the defendant was committing a misdemeanor
at the time. By Section 1950 of the Penal Law it is a misdemeanor to
render the highways dangerous or to render a considerable number of
persons insecure in life. The defendant in approaching the village of
Wide Plains along a highway on which there were buildings and people at
a rate of forty miles an hour was so endangering life. Gentlemen, there
never was a simpler case as to law and fact than this one."

Lydia glanced at Wiley under her lashes. It seemed to her that
O'Bannon's manner was almost perfect. She believed he had already
captured the jury