eard he would
probably have thought that he was deceived by his excitement, impossible
as it was that such a name should have anything to do with this or any
other trial. The shock therefore was unbroken when, watching with all
the absorbed interest of a spectator at the most exciting play, the boy
saw a lady come slowly forward into the witness-box. Philip had the
same strange sense of knowing who it was that he had felt the previous
witness to have in respect to the man whom he could not see, but yet had
infallibly recognised: but he said to himself, No! it was not possible!
No! it was not possible! She came forward slowly, put up the veil that
had covered her face, and grasped the bar before her to support herself;
and then the boy sprang to his feet, in the terrible shock which
electrified him from head to feet! His movements, and the stifled cry
he uttered, made a little commotion in the crowd, and called forth the
cry of "Silence in the court." His neighbours around him hustled him
back into his place, where he sank down incapable indeed of movement,
knowing that he could not go and pluck her from that place--could not
rush to her side, could do nothing but sit there and gasp and gaze
at his mother. His mother, in such a place! in such a case! with
which--surely, surely--she could have nothing to do. Elinor Compton, at
the time referred to Elinor Dennistoun, of Windyhill, in Surrey--there
was no doubt about the name now. And Philip had time enough to
identify everything, name and person, for there rose a vague surging
of contention about the first questions put to her, which were not
evidence, according to the counsel on the other side, which he felt with
fury was done on purpose to prolong the agony. During this time she
stood immovable, holding on by the rail before her, her eyes fixed upon
it, perfectly pale, like marble, and as still. Among all the moving,
rustling, palpitating crowd, and the sharp volleys of the lawyers'
voices, and even the contradictory opinions elicited from the harassed
judge himself--to look at that figure standing there, which scarcely
seemed to breathe, had the most extraordinary effect. For a time Philip
was like her, scarcely breathing, holding on in an unconscious sympathy
to the back of the seat before him, his eyes wide open, fixed upon her.
But as his nerves began to accustom themselves to that extraordinary,
inconceivable sight, the other particulars of the scene came out of
the