ire
of questions was great. She struggled on, however, until the time came
when Raeburn stood up to ask whether a certain question was allowable.
She looked at him then for the first time, saw how terribly he was
feeling her interminable examination, and for a moment lost heart. The
rows of people grew hazy and indistinct. Mr. Cringer's face got all
mixed up with his wig, she had to hold tightly to the railing. How much
longer could she endure?

"Yet you doubtless thought this probable?" continued her tormentor.

"Oh, no! On the contrary, quite the reverse," said Erica with a
momentary touch of humor.

"Are you acquainted with the popular saying: 'None are so blind as those
who will not see?'"

The tone was so insulting that indignation restored Erica to her full
strength; she was stung into giving a sharp retort.

"Yes," she said very quietly. "It has often occurred to me during this
action as strangely applicable to the defendant."

Mr. Cringer looked as if he could have eaten her. There was a burst of
applause which was speedily suppressed.

"Yet you do not, of course, mean to deny the whole allegation?"

"Emphatically!"

"Are you aware that people will think you either a deluded innocent or
an infamous deceiver?"

"I am not here to consider what people may think of me, but to speak the
truth."

And as she spoke she involuntarily glanced toward those twelve
fellow-countrymen of hers upon whose verdict so much depended. Probably
even the oldest, even the coldest of the jurymen felt his heart beat a
little faster as those beautiful, sad honest eyes scanned the jury box.
As for the counsel for the defense, he prudently accepted his defeat
and, as Raeburn would not ask a single question of his daughter in
cross-examination, another witness was called.

Long after, it was a favorite story among the young barristers of how
Mr. Cringer was checkmated by Raeburn's daughter.

The case dragged on its weary length till August. At last, when two
months of the public time had been consumed, when something like 20,000
pounds had been spent, when most bitter resentment had been stirred up
among the secularists, Mr. Pogson's defense came to an end. Raeburn's
reply was short, but effective; and the jury returned a verdict in his
favor, fixing the damages, however, at the very lowest sum, not because
they doubted that Raeburn had been most grossly libeled, but because the
plaintiff had the misfortune to be an atheist.