all, taking notes of her confusion. "Come, it's
over and done with--it's of no use to deny it now. We all go upon visits
to friends sometimes."

"I never heard anything so bold!" cried Afy. "Where will you tell me I
went next?"

"You are upon your oath, woman!" again interposed Justice Hare, and a
trembling, as of agitation, might be detected in his voice, in spite of
its ringing severity. "Were you with the prisoner Levison, or were you
with Richard Hare?"

"I with Richard Hare!" cried Afy, agitated in her turn, and shaking like
an aspen-leaf, partly with discomfiture, partly with unknown dread. "How
dare that cruel falsehood be brought up again, to my face? I never saw
Richard Hare after the night of the murder. I swear it. I swear that
I never saw him since. Visit _him_! I'd sooner visit Calcraft, the
hangman."

There was truth in the words--in the tone. The chairman let fall the
hand which had been raised to his face, holding on his eye-glasses;
and a sort of self-condemning fear arose, confusing his brain. His son,
proved innocent of one part, _might_ be proved innocent of the other;
and then--how would his own harsh conduct show out! West Lynne, in its
charity, the justice in his, had cast more odium to Richard, with regard
to his after conduct touching this girl, than it had on the score of the
murder.

"Come," said Lawyer Ball, in a coaxing tone, "let us be pleasant.
Of course you were not with Richard Hare--West Lynne is always
ill-natured--you were on a visit to Captain Thorn, as--as any other
young lady might be?"

Afy hung her head, cowed down to abject meekness.

"Answer the question," came forth the chairman's voice again. "_Were_
you with Thorn?"

"Yes," though the answer was feeble enough.

Mr. Ball coughed an insinuating cough.

"Did you remain with him--say two or three years?"

"Not three."

"A little over two, perhaps?"

"There was no harm in it," shrieked Afy, with a catching sob of temper.
"If I chose to live in London, and he chose to make a morning call upon
me, now and then, as an old friend, what's that to anybody? Where was
the harm, I ask?"

"Certainly--where was the harm? _I_ am not insinuating any," returned
Lawyer Ball, with a wink of the eye furthest from the witness and the
bench. "And, during the time that--that he was making these little
morning calls upon you, did you know him to be Levison?"

"Yes. I knew him to be Captain Levison then."

"Did he ever tell you