do with the matter,
announced his intention to put a further question or two to Mrs.
Compton. Young Philip in the crowd started again from his seat with the
feeling that he would like to fly at that man's throat.

"Twenty years is a long time," he said, "and it is difficult to be sure
of any circumstance at such a distance. Perhaps the witness will kindly
inform us what were the circumstances which fixed this, no doubt one of
many visits, on her mind?"

Elinor turned for the first time to the side from which the question
came with a little movement of that impatience which was habitual to
her, which three persons in that crowd recognised in a moment as
characteristic. One of these was John Tatham, who had brought her to the
court, and kept near that she might feel that she was not alone; the
other was her son, of whose presence there nobody knew; the third, sat
with his eyes cast down, and his arms folded on his breast, not looking
at her, yet seeing every movement she made.

"It was a very simple circumstance," she said with the added spirit of
that impetuous impulse: but then the hasty movement failed her, and she
came back to herself and to a consciousness of the scene in which she
stood. A sort of tremulous shiver came into her voice. She paused and
then resumed, "There was a calendar hanging in the hall; it caught Mr.
Compton's eye, and he pointed it out to me. It marked the 6th. He said,
'Just ten days----'"

Here her voice stopped altogether. She could say no more. And there was
an answering pause throughout the whole crowded court, a holding of the
general breath, the response to a note of passion seldom struck in such
a place. Even in the cross-examination there was a pause.

"Till when? What was the other date referred to?"

"The sixteenth of September," she said in a voice that was scarcely
audible to the crowd. She added still more low so that the judge curved
his hand over his ear to hear her, "Our wedding-day."

"I regret to enter into private matters, Mrs. Compton, but I believe it
is not a secret that your married life came to a--more rapid conclusion
than could have been augured from such a beginning. May I ask what your
reasons were for----"

But here the other counsel sprang to his feet, and the contention arose
again. Such a question was not clearly permissible. And the prosecution
was perfectly satisfied with the evidence. It narrowed the question by
the production of this clear and unquest