Her face looked so pinched and thin that it was like the
face of an old woman. The dull, vacant resignation of her
expression was something shocking to see. It changed a little
when her eyes first turned heavily toward me, and she whispered,
with a faint smile, "I am sorry for you, William--I am very, very
sorry for you." But as soon as she had said those words the blank
look returned, and she sat with her head drooping forward, quiet,
and inattentive, and hopeless--so changed a being that her oldest
friends would hardly have known her.
Our examination was a mere formality. There was no additional
evidence either for or against us, and we were remanded again for
another week.
I asked the lawyer, privately, if any chance had offered itself
of tracing Mr. James Smith. He looked mysterious, and only said
in answer, "Hope for the best." I inquired next if any progress
had been made toward fixing the guilt of the robbery on
Josephine.
"I never boast," he replied. "But, cunning as she is, I should
not be surprised if Mr. Dark and I, together, turned out to be
more than a match for her."
Mr. Dark! There was something in the mere mention of his name
that gave me confidence in the future. If I could only have got
my poor mistress's sad, dazed face out of my mind, I should not
have had much depression of spirits to complain of during the
interval of time that elapsed between the second examination and
the third.
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