All the points that had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day, were here thrown into luminous and admirable form.

She had listened to them indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury, but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now, that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did.
When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the declining fire, an idea struck her.

She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn's desk, and wrote on it: "Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down?
I forgot that you had not seen it .-- M." A ring at the bell brought the maid.
"Will you please get this taken to Mr.Raeburn?
And then, don't disturb me again for half an hour." And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outwardly at rest.

Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all her forces.
When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got up and put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror.
She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair.

But she looked at herself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair a little lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and once more straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to her plain black dress.
The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still.