ng his angry wonder at the
need to deliberate in so plain a case. He was threatening to adjourn
and let the jury lie by all night if they did not bring in their verdict
quickly. When, at the end of a half-hour, they returned, his fierce,
impatient glance found them ominously grave.

"My lord," said Mr. Whistler, the foreman, "we have to beg of your
lordship some directions before we can bring our verdict. We have some
doubt upon us whether there be sufficient proof that she knew Hicks to
have been in the army."

Well might they doubt it, for there was no proof at all. Yet he never
hesitated to answer them.

"There is as full proof as proof can be. But you are judges of the
proof. For my part, I thought there was no difficulty in it."

"My lord," the foreman insisted, "we are in some doubt about it."

"I cannot help your doubts," he said irritably. "Was there not proved
a discourse of the battle and of the battle and of the army at
supper-time?"

"But, my lord, we are not satisfied that she had notice that Hicks was
in the army."

He glowered upon them in silence for a moment. They deserved to be
themselves indicted for their slowness to perceive where lay their duty
to their king.

"I cannot tell what would satisfy you," he said; and sneered. "Did she
not inquire of Dunne whether Hicks had been in the army? And when he
told her he did not know, she did not say she would refuse if he had
been, but ordered him to come by night, by which it is evident she
suspected it."

He ignored, you see, her own complete explanation of that circumstance.

"And when Hicks and Nelthorp came, did she not discourse with them about
the battle and the army?" (As if that were not at the time a common
topic of discussion.) "Come, come, gentlemen," he said, with amazing
impudence, "it is plain proof."

But Mr. Whistler was not yet satisfied.

"We do not remember, my lord, that it was proved that she asked any such
question."

That put him in a passion.

"Sure," he bellowed, "you do not remember anything that has passed. Did
not Dunne tell you there was such a discourse, and she was by? But if
there were no such proof, the circumstances and management of the thing
are as full proof as can be. I wonder what it is you doubt of!"

Mrs. Lisle had risen. There was a faint flush of excitement on her grey
old face.

"My lord, I hope--" she began, in trembling tones, to get no further.

"You must not speak now!" thundered her terr