Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/217

 XXIV

THE TRIAL

The old woman took her seat at the table obediently, but with a bewilderment as great as on the previous day. It was very strange that incidents such as these should arise to embellish her servitude.

This morning, however, she was not tormented with a string of questions. Northcote was silent, gloomy, and haggard; something appeared to be preying on his mind. The remorse he had shown for having failed to ask how her grandchild was seemed strange to her indeed, for until the previous day he had always stood in her mind as a member of the inaccessible classes. Something had appeared to happen to him by which, in a few short hours, the tenor and current of his life had been changed. There was a terrible excitement burning now under his pale skin; his eyes were restless, his fingers were twitching, and he drank cup after cup of the hot tea as though he were consumed with an intolerable thirst.

When he had finished his breakfast he took his wig and gown out of a cupboard, and placed them together with his brief in a small black bag. He was on the point of starting for the court, when through the open door he could hear footsteps on the stairs. Some one was coming up to the fourth story, an incident so rare in the experience of its