He ordered the jury to be present at a quarter before ten, and gave
the signal for general withdrawal.

After which every one went home.

CHAPTER XXXI

AND THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CARE

For the first time in the whole course of her life Louisa Harris felt
that convention must be flouted and social duties could not be
fulfilled.

When the coroner, rising from his seat, gave the signal for general
exodus, she had felt her father's firm hand grasping her arm, and
leading her out of the fog-ridden, stuffy room into the cold, gray
passages outside.

The herd of cackling geese were crowding round her. Heavens above, how
they cackled and gossiped! It seemed as if the very floodgates of a
noisy, bubbling stream had been torn asunder, and a whirlpool of
chattering women been let loose upon the earth.

Convention, grim and untractable, tried to pull the string to make all
puppets dance. But for once Louisa Harris rebelled. She closed her
ears to insinuating calls from her friends, responding with a mere
curt nod to the most gushing "Oh, Miss Harris! how are you?" which
greeted her from every side.

She turned her back resolutely on convention. The slave for once
rebelled against the taskmaster: the puppet refused to dance to the
ever-wearying monotonous tune.

She had lost sight of Luke the moment the court rose. She supposed
that his solicitor, Mr. Dobson, knowing the ropes, had got him away
from the reach of cackling geese by leading him through some other
more private way. But she was far too dazed, too numb, either to
wonder or to be disappointed at this. She felt as if she had pitched
head foremost down a long flight of stairs, and had only just had
sufficient strength to pick herself up, and not to let other people
see quite how severely she had been bruised.

Mentally, morally, even physically, she felt bruised from head to
foot.

Colonel Harris contrived to steer her through the crowd: at the gate
outside even the smoke-laden atmosphere seemed pure and invigorating
in comparison with that stuffy pen, wherein the herd of cackling geese
had found its happy hunting ground. Louisa drew in a long breath,
filling her lungs with fog, but feeling a little freer, less choked in
spite of the grime which she inhaled.

"I think," said Colonel Harris now, "that you'd better go straight
back to the Langham, and get some tea. You'll feel better when you've
had your tea."

"I feel all right, dear," she s