the table were half a dozen chairs of early Victorian
design upholstered in leather that had once been green. To these
chairs a dozen men were even now making their way, each taking his
seat in solemn silence: men in overcoats and with velvet collars
somewhat worn at the back of the neck--it seemed to Louisa as if they
were dressed in some kind of uniform so alike did their clothes
appear. She looked at their faces as they filed in--haggard faces,
rubicund, jolly faces, faces which mirrored suspicion, faces which
revealed obstinacy, the whole of middle class England personified in
these typical twelve men all wearing overcoats with shabby velvet
collars, who were to decide to-day how and when Philip de Mountford,
heir presumptive to the Earl of Radclyffe, had been done to death.

Louisa and her father were able at last to reach the fore-front of the
crowd, where chairs had been reserved for them immediately facing the
table, at the farther end of which the coroner already sat. Louisa
recognized Mr. Humphreys, one of Mr. Dobson's clerks, who did his best
to make her and Colonel Harris comfortable. Farther on sat Mr.
Davies, who had been Philip de Mountford's solicitor when he had first
desired an interview with Lord Radclyffe. Louisa knew him by
sight--Luke had on one occasion pointed him out to her.

Luke and Mr. Dobson were even now making their way to the same group
of seats. They had--like the jury and the coroner--been in the
mortuary to have a last look at the murdered man. Louisa thought that
Luke looked years older than he had done yesterday. She saw him
standing for a moment right against the dull, drabby background of the
court room wall; and it seemed as if something of that drabbiness had
descended upon his soul. Youth seemed to have gone out of him. He
appeared to be looking out onto a dreary world through windows
obscured by grime.

There was a look not so much of dejection as of absolute hopelessness
in the face. No fear, or anxiety--only a renunciation. But this was
only for one moment; the next he had caught sight of her, and the look
of blank dejection in his eyes suddenly gave place to one of acute and
intolerable pain. The face which usually was so calm and placid in its
impassive mask of high-bred indifference was almost distorted by an
expression of agony which obviously had been quite beyond control.

The whole thing was of course a mere flash, less than a quarter of a
second perhaps in duratio