"Besides Captain Thorn, what gentlemen were in the wood the night of the murder?"

"Richard Hare was there. Otway Bethel and Locksley also. Those were all I saw until the crowd came."

"Were Locksley and Mr. Otway Bethel martyrs to your charms, as the other two were?"

"No, indeed!" was the witness's answer, with an indignant toss of the head. "A couple of poaching fellows like them! They had better have tried it on!"

"Which of the two, Hare or Thorn, was inside the cottage with you that evening?"

Afy came out of her vanity and hesitated. She was beginning to wonder where the questions would get to.

"You are upon your oath, witness!" thundered Mr. Justice Hare. "If it was my--if it was Richard Hare who was with you, say so. But there must be no equivocation here."

Afy was startled. "It was Thorn," she answered to Mr. Ball.

"And where was Richard Hare?"

"I don't know. He came down, but I sent him away; I would not admit him.

I dare say he lingered in the wood."

"Did he leave a gun with you?"

"Yes. It was one he had promised to lend my father. I put it down just inside the door. He told me it was loaded."

"How long after this was it, that your father interrupted you?"

"He didn't interrupt us at all," returned Afy. "I never saw my father until I saw him dead."

"Were you not in the cottage all the time?"

"No; we went out for a stroll at the back. Captain Thorn wished me good- bye there, and I stayed out."

"Did you hear the gun go off?"

"I heard a shot as I was sitting on the stump of a tree, and was thinking; but I attached no importance to it, never supposing it was in the cottage."

"What was it that Captain Thorn had to get from the cottage after he quitted you? What had he left there?"

Now, this was a random shaft. Lawyer Ball, a keen man, who had well weighed all points in the tale imparted to him by Richard, as well as other points, had colored them with his own deductions, and spoke accordingly. Afy was taken in.

"He had left his hat there--nothing else. It was a warm evening, and he had gone out without it."

"He told you, I believe, sufficient to convince you of the guilt of Richard Hare?" Another shaft thrown at random.

"I did not want convincing--I knew it without. Everybody else knew it."

"To be sure," equably returned Lawyer Ball. "Did Captain Thorn see it done--did he tell you that?"

"He had got his hat, and was away down the wood some little distance, when he heard voices in dispute in the cottage, and recognized one of them to be that of my father. The shot followed close upon it, and he guessed some mischief had been done, though he did not suspect its extent."

"Thorn told you this--when?"

"The same night--much later."

"How came you to see him?"

Afy hesitated; but she was sternly told to answer the question.

"A boy came up to the cottage and called me out, and said a strange gentleman wanted to see me in the wood, and had given him sixpence to come for me. I went, and found Captain Thorn. He asked me what the commotion was about, and I told him Richard Hare had killed my father.

He said, that now I spoke of him, he could recognize Richard Hare's as having been the other voice in the dispute."

"What boy was that--the one who came for you?"

"It was Mother Whiteman's little son."

"And Captain Thorn then gave you this version of the tragedy?"

"It was the right version," resentfully spoke Afy.

"How do you know that?"

"Oh! because I'm sure it was. Who else would kill him but Richard Hare?

It is a scandalous shame, your wanting to put it upon Thorn!"

"Look at the prisoner, Sir Francis Levison. Is it he whom you knew as Thorn?"

"Yes; but that does not make him guilty of the murder."

"Of course it does not," complacently a.s.sented Lawyer Ball. "How long did you remain with Captain Thorn in London--upon that little visit, you know?"

Afy started like anybody moonstruck.

"When you quitted this place, after the tragedy, it was to join Captain Thorn in London. How long, I ask, did you remain with him?"

Entirely a random shaft, this. But Richard had totally denied to Lawyer Ball the popular a.s.sumption that Afy had been with him.

"Who says I was with him? Who says I went after him?" flashed Afy, with scarlet cheeks.

"I do," replied Lawyer Ball, taking notes of her confusion. "Come, it's over and done with--it's of no use to deny it now. We all go upon visits to friends sometimes."

"I never heard anything so bold!" cried Afy. "Where will you tell me I went next?"

"You are upon your oath, woman!" again interposed Justice Hare, and a trembling, as of agitation, might be detected in his voice, in spite of its ringing severity. "Were you with the prisoner Levison, or were you with Richard Hare?"

"I with Richard Hare!" cried Afy, agitated in her turn, and shaking like an aspen-leaf, partly with discomfiture, partly with unknown dread. "How dare that cruel falsehood be brought up again, to my face? I never saw Richard Hare after the night of the murder. I swear it. I swear that I never saw him since. Visit him! I'd sooner visit Calcraft, the hangman."

There was truth in the words--in the tone. The chairman let fall the hand which had been raised to his face, holding on his eye-gla.s.ses; and a sort of self-condemning fear arose, confusing his brain. His son, proved innocent of one part, might be proved innocent of the other; and then--how would his own harsh conduct show out! West Lynne, in its charity, the justice in his, had cast more odium to Richard, with regard to his after conduct touching this girl, than it had on the score of the murder.