Physically he was improved.
Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral conflict.
But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.
Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or in the temper of the people surrounding him.

I felt that beyond the one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel's name and Carmel's character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from the first and was my terror now.
Perjury! but not in his own defence--rather in opposition to it--that is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it.

My attention became absorbed in the puzzle.

Carmel's fate, if not Ella's--and certainly my own--hung upon the issue.

This I knew, and this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions having been answered, Mr.Moffat proceeded.
The witness's name having been demanded and given and some other preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked: "Mr.Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the afternoon or evening of December the second ?" "I did." Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he blurted forth: "And it wasn't the first.