"You know the prisoner, Ormesby?" asked Dixon; and though her voice was low, its clear distinctness seemed to permeate the building as she answered: "I do. He is a friend of my father's, and visited us at Bonaventure occasionally."
"Did you ever see a silver match-box in his possession, and, if so, could you describe it?"
"I did, on several occasions. He wore it hooked on to his watch-chain, and once handed it to me to light a lamp with. It had an oak-leaf engraving with a partly obliterated inscription--'From ---- to H. Ormesby.'"
"I think that is an accurate description," said Dixon; and when the judge, who held up a little silver object and passed it on to the jury, signified assent, I glanced in savage bewilderment at the speaker. It had appeared shameful cruelty to hale that delicate girl into a crowded court; now it also appeared sheer madness. She never once glanced in my direction, but stood with head erect, one hand resting on the rails, where the pitiless sunlight beat full upon her, with eyes fixed only on the judge; but in spite of her courage I could see that her lips trembled, while the little gloved fingers tightened spasmodically on the rails. Then I hung my head for very shame that I had been the unwitting cause of such an ordeal, feeling that I would prefer to suffer ten convictions rather than that she should become a subject for discussion in every saloon, and the free commentary of the Western press, even if she could have saved me.
"When did you last see the match-box?" asked Dixon.
"On the morning of the Wednesday in the third week after the fire. I am sure of the day, because the visit of some friends from Montreal impressed it on my memory. Henry Ormesby had stayed all night at Bonaventure and left early in the morning. A maid brought me the match-box, which she had found on the bureau, with one or two articles of clothing; and as he did not return I told her to slip the match-box inside the packet and forward them. I forgot the incident until the trial recalled it."
As Lucille ceased it flashed upon me that I had wondered how the match-box had made its way into a pocket in which I never carried it. Then I was borne down by a great wave of gratitude to the girl who, it seemed, had saved me. She was rigorously cross-examined, and, while I do not know whether the prosecutor exceeded due limits in his efforts to shake her evidence, I grew murderously inclined towards him as I noticed how his victim's color came and went, and the effort it cost her not to shrink under the questions. But her courage rose with the emergency, and when the indignation crept into her eyes there was several times subdued applause as her answer to some innuendo carried a rebuke with it.