Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/161

 smiled. What was she smiling at? Then she woke to the knowledge of her surroundings, and she shuddered in the dock; the sweet face grew white and convulsed; suddenly she burst out crying. Crying aloud, poor child, poor wayward child, who had meant to play through life, and woke from her playing—here.

All alive and awake she was for the rest of that horrible day, quivering and trembling and sobbing, half child, half woman, as the trial wore on. Ever and again the crimson flushed into her cheek, her eyes suffused, her head bent, in a very agony of shame; she heard horrible questions, horrible answers. She felt herself undraped before these inquisitorial eyes, and shrinking, drawing her cloak round her with shaking hands, she would try and hide her poor hot face.

But as the day wore on, something of hope crept in warm about her heart. If Frank were here, he would not let them talk so—Frank, her lover. She heard again the passionate protestations of their short betrothal. She felt again his lips against hers. She was back again in the golden days when the sun flush of love was over all her life, and sun queen in those hours she had played with her happiness. And pitifully the tremulous lips murmured, "If Frank were here, he would not let them hurt me; if Frank were here!"

What a strange, complicated Fenella! Ar-