Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/235

 Over the pallor of her face the colour mounted fast, then faded.

'That I will never tell you.'

'The law shall compel you to speak.'

'That the law cannot do,' she said with a calm disdain. Had not Lena bitten through her tongue rather than speak of him she loved? So also could she. Este had told her the old Greek story.

The judge was angered, irritated, and bewildered. He knew not what to do. He could not think her guilty, yet he could not, in face of the offended majesty of the law he represented, declare her guiltless, and refuse the steward of Prince Altamonte his right to demand a trial.

He closed the examination hurriedly, and remanded her to prison, there to await her fate. There was no one to tell her that perhaps she might successfully ask to be left free until the time of trial, and, indeed, such a request would probably have been refused in view of the guilt of which she was accused.

But that night the judge said to his sub-pretore, 'Never did I see innocence if I do not see it thither; and she would go to the scaffold, if we sent her there, mute.'