For the end was not yet. Through all the turmoil of noisy
departure and the drifting out into the square of a vast,
dissatisfied throng, she had caught the flash of a bit of paper
(how introduced into this moving mass of people no one ever knew)
passing from hand to hand, towards the solitary figure of the
judge who had not as yet left his seat.
She knew--no one better--what this meant, and instinct bade her
cry out and bid those thoughtless hands to cease their work and
let this letter drop. But her discretion still held, and, subduing
the mad impulse, she watched with dilating eyes and heaving breast
the slow passage of this fatal note through the now rapidly
thinning crowd, its delay as it reached the open space between the
last row of seats and the judge's bench and its final delivery by
some officious hand, who thrust it upon his notice just as he was
rising to leave.
The picture he made in that instant of hesitation never left her
mind. To the end of her days she will carry a vision of his tall
form, imposing in his judicial robes and with the majesty of his
office still upon him, fingering this envelope in sight of such
persons as still lingered in his part of the room. Nemesis was
lowering its black wings over his devoted head, and, with feelings
which left her dazed and transfixed in silent terror, Deborah saw
his finger tear its way through the envelope and his eyes fall
frowningly on the paper he drew out.
Then the People's counsel and the counsel for the Defence and such
clerks and hangers-on as still lingered in the upper end of the
room experienced a decided sensation.
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