posure, did not
continue silent at his bidding. On the contrary, her purpose, whatever
it was, seemed to acquire new force, for turning from him with a
strange, unearthly glare on her face, she fixed her glances on the jury
and went steadily on.

"I have said," she began, "that Mrs. Clemmens was winding her clock.
When I came in she stepped down, and a short and angry colloquy
commenced between us. She did not like my coming there. She did not
appreciate my interest in her nephew. She made me furious, frenzied,
mad. I--I turned away--then I came back. She was standing with her face
lifted toward her clock, as though she no longer heeded or remembered my
presence. I--I don't know what came to me; whether it was hatred or love
that maddened my brain--but----"

She did not finish; she did not need to. The look she gave, the attitude
she took, the appalling gesture which she made, supplied the place of
language. In an instant Mr. Ferris, Mr. Orcutt, all the many and
confused spectators who hung upon her words as if spell-bound, realized
that instead of giving evidence inculpating the prisoner, she was giving
evidence _accusing_ herself; that, in other words, Imogene Dare, goaded
to madness by the fearful alternative of either destroying her lover or
sacrificing herself, had yielded to the claims of her love or her
conscience, and in hearing of judge and jury, proclaimed herself to be
the murderess of Mrs. Clemmens.

The moment that followed was frightful. The prisoner, who was probably
the only man present who foresaw her intention when she began to speak,
had sunk back into his seat and covered his face with his hands long
before she reached the fatal declaration. But the spectacle presented
by Mr. Orcutt was enough, as with eyes dilated and lips half parted in
consternation, he stood before them a victim of overwhelming emotion; so
overcome, indeed, as scarcely to be able to give vent to the one low and
memorable cry that involuntarily left his lips as the full realization
of what she had done smote home to his stricken breast.

As for Mr. Ferris, he stood dumb, absolutely robbed of speech by this
ghastly confession he had unwillingly called from his witness' lips;
while slowly from end to end of that court-room the wave of horror
spread, till Imogene, her cause, and that of the wretched prisoner
himself, seemed swallowed up in one fearful tide of unreality and
nightmare.

The first gleam of relief came from the Jud