zed.

Was that the face that had been hidden from them all these days? It was
not what they had pictured beneath the proud, defiant carriage of its
concealing veil. Was that the face of a determined murderess?

Beautiful it was not as they saw it then, but the elements of beauty lay
unmistable beneath a white mist of horror and of pain, as a lovely
landscape is still lovely at its worst. The face was a thin but perfect
oval, lengthened a little by depth of chin and height of forehead, as
now also by unnatural emaciation and distress. The mouth was at once
bloodless, sweet, and firm; the eyes of a warm and lustrous brown,
brilliant, eloquent, brave--and hopeless!

Yes, she had no hope herself! It was plain enough at the first glimpse
of the deadly white, uncovered face, in the cruel glare of gas. But it
became plainer still as, with sad, unflinching eyes, she watched and
listened while, for the last time, the jurymen answered to their names.

Now they were done. The foreman shifted nervously in his place. In the
overstain of the last dread pause, the crowded court felt hotter and
lighter than ever. It seemed to unite the glare of a gin palace with the
temperature of a Turkish bath.

"Gentlemen, are you greed upon your verdict?"

"We are."

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"Not guilty."

There was a simultaneous gasp from a hundred throats--a distinct cry
from some. Then the Clerk of Arraigns was seen to be leaning forward, a
hand to his ear, for the foreman's voice had broken with excitement. And
every soul in court leaned forward too.

But this time his feelings had a different effect upon the excited
foreman.

"_Not_ guilty!" he almost bawled.

Dead silence then, while the clock ticked thrice.

"And that is the verdict of you all?"

"Of every one of us!"

The judge leant back in his place, his eyes upon the desk before him,
without a movement or a gesture to strike the personal note which had
been suppressed with such admirable impartiality throughout the trial.
But it was several moments before his eyes were lifted with his voice.

"Let her be discharged," was all he said even then; but he would seem to
have said it at once gruffly, angrily, thankfully, disgustedly, with
emotion, and without any emotion at all. You read the papers, and you
take your choice.

So Rachel Minchin was supported from the court before the round eyes of
a hundred or two of her fellow-creatures, in the pi