al, was very
short. John Burrows and Lawrence Acorn had come to the cottage on
Pycroft Common on that Sunday morning, and there she had seen both
of them. It was daylight when they came, but still it was very early.
She had not observed the clock, but she thought that it may have
been about five. The men were in and out of the house, but they had
some breakfast. She had risen from bed to help to get them their
breakfast. If anything had been buried by them in the garden, she
had known nothing of it. She had then received three sovereigns from
Acorn, whom she was engaged to marry. From that day to the present
she had never seen either of the men. As soon as she heard of the
suspicion against Acorn, and that he had fled, she conceived her
engagement to be at an end. All this she testified, with infinite
difficulty, in so low a voice that a man was sworn to stand by her
and repeat her answers aloud to the jury;--and then she was handed
over to the burly barrister.

She had been long enough in the court to perceive, and had been
clever enough to learn, that this man would be her enemy. Though
she had been unable to speak aloud in answering the counsel for
the prosecution, she had quite understood that the man was her
friend,--that he was only putting to her those questions which
must be asked,--and questions which she could answer without much
difficulty. But when she was told to attend to what the other
gentleman would say to her, then, indeed, her poor heart failed her.

It came at once. "My dear, I believe you have been indiscreet?"
The words, perhaps, had been chosen with some idea of mercy, but
certainly there was no mercy in the tone. The man's voice was loud,
and there was something in it almost of a jeer,--something which
seemed to leave an impression on the hearer that there had been
pleasure in the asking it. She struggled to make an answer, and the
monosyllable, yes, was formed by her lips. The man who was acting as
her mouthpiece stooped down his ears to her lips, and then shook his
head. Assuredly no sound had come from them that could have reached
his sense, had he been ever so close. The burly barrister waited in
patience, looking now at her, and now round at the court. "I must
have an answer. I say that I believe you have been indiscreet. You
know, I dare say, what I mean. Yes or no will do; but I must have
an answer." She glanced round for an instant, trying to catch her
father's eye; but she could see n