And every soul in court leaned forward too.
But this time his feelings had a different effect upon the excited foreman.
"_Not_ guilty!" he almost bawled.
Dead silence then, while the clock ticked thrice.
"And that is the verdict of you all ?" "Of every one of us!" The judge leant back in his place, his eyes upon the desk before him, without a movement or a gesture to strike the personal note which had been suppressed with such admirable impartiality throughout the trial.
But it was several moments before his eyes were lifted with his voice.
"Let her be discharged," was all he said even then; but he would seem to have said it at once gruffly, angrily, thankfully, disgustedly, with emotion, and without any emotion at all.

You read the papers, and you take your choice.
So Rachel Minchin was supported from the court before the round eyes of a hundred or two of her fellow-creatures, in the pitiable state of one who has been condemned to die, and not set free to live.

It was as though she still misunderstood a verdict which had filled most faces with incredulity, but none with an astonishment to equal her own.

Her white face had leaped alight, but not with gladness.

The pent-up emotion of the week had broken forth in an agony of tears; and so they half led, half carried her from the court.