And when the latter at last returned, and then the former, it
was the same subtle stare that he again bent upon them both in turn.
The jury had been absent but forty minutes after all; and their
expedition seemed as ill an omen as their nervous and responsible faces.
There was a moment's hush, another moment of prophetic murmurs, and then
a stillness worthy of its subsequent description in every newspaper. The
prisoner was standing in the front of the dock, a female warder upon
either hand. The lightning pencil of the new journalist had its will of
her at last. For Mrs. Minchin had dispensed not only with the chair
which she had occupied all the week, but also with the heavy veil which
she had but partially lifted during her brief sojourn in the
witness-box, and never once in the dock. The veil was now flung back
over the widow's bonnet, peaking and falling like a sable cowl, against
which the unearthly pallor of her face was whiter far then that of the
merely dead, just as mere death was the least part of the fate
confronting her. Yet she had raised her veil to look it fairly in the
face, and the packed assembly marvelled as it gazed.
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