wing to the fact that
practically everyone in the neighbourhood was victimized, and warnings,
almost amounting to threats, issued to the Ogden woman's friends to have
nothing more to do with her, the public were, so to speak, directly
affected; and it was in the interests of the public that, finally,
criminal proceedings were instituted."

"And in the end an intelligent jury brought in a verdict of guilty?"

"Yes. The case came on at Ripstone, five miles away, and of course
excited no end of interest locally. To give them their due, the jury
were very reluctant to bring in that verdict--but I assure you"--he
spoke weightily--"when I heard the other side marshalling their facts,
each one making the case look still blacker and more damning, I began to
be afraid. Yes, I confess it, I began to feel very much afraid."

"And they brought her in guilty?"

"Yes, and the Judge sentenced her. I don't like to accuse one of His
Majesty's judges of allowing his judgment to be prejudiced by personal
feeling," said Sir Richard slowly; "but it has always seemed to me that
Chloe's manner--her peculiarly detached, indifferent manner, as though
the case did not interest her vitally--was in some subtle fashion an
affront to the man. His remarks to her seemed to me unnecessarily
severe, and he certainly did not err on the side of leniency."

"I should think not! Twelve months--why, it's an Eternity!"

"What must it have seemed to that poor girl!" Sir Richard spoke
pitifully. "I used to fancy she would die in prison--I could not imagine
how she could support the life in there, in those degrading
surroundings. You know, not only had she been lapped in luxury, as they
say, all her life, but, more important still, she had been used to
boundless love and affection from all around her."

"You find her much altered?"

"Yes. I can't say exactly in what the alteration consists," returned Sir
Richard thoughtfully. "It's not merely a surface thing--the change goes
deeper than that. I called her _posee_ just now. Well, I don't know if
that's the right word. Sometimes I think that frozen manner of hers
isn't a pose after all, it's natural to her nowadays. She seems to be
literally turned to stone by all she's gone through. Where she used to
be all sympathy, all ardour, all life, now she's cold, frigid,
passionless. The girl's barely twenty-five, but upon my soul she might
be a woman of fifty for all the youth there is about her--except in her
l