"Gentlemen, are you greed upon your verdict?"
"We are."
"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty."
There was a simultaneous gasp from a hundred throats--a distinct cry
from some. Then the Clerk of Arraigns was seen to be leaning forward, a
hand to his ear, for the foreman's voice had broken with excitement. And
every soul in court leaned forward too.
But this time his feelings had a different effect upon the excited
foreman.
"_Not_ guilty!" he almost bawled.
Dead silence then, while the clock ticked thrice.
"And that is the verdict of you all?"
"Of every one of us!"
The judge leant back in his place, his eyes upon the desk before him,
without a movement or a gesture to strike the personal note which had
been suppressed with such admirable impartiality throughout the trial.
But it was several moments before his eyes were lifted with his voice.
"Let her be discharged," was all he said even then; but he would seem to
have said it at once gruffly, angrily, thankfully, disgustedly, with
emotion, and without any emotion at all. You read the papers, and you
take your choice.
So Rachel Minchin was supported from the court before the round eyes of
a hundred or two of her fellow-creatures, in the pitiable state of one
who has been condemned to die, and not set free to live.
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