She perfectly--passionately--understood that Brookshire was very sorry for Aldous Raeburn that day.
The death sentences--three in number--were over.

The judge was a very ordinary man; but, even for the ordinary man, such an act carries with it a great tradition of what is befitting, which imposes itself on voice and gesture.

When he ceased, the deep breath of natural emotion could be felt and heard throughout the crowded court; loud wails of sobbing women broke from the gallery.
"Silence!" cried an official voice, and the judge resumed, amid stifled sounds that stabbed Marcella's sense, once more nakedly alive to everything around it.
The sentences to penal servitude came to an end also.

Then a ghastly pause.

The line of prisoners directed by the warders turned right about face towards a door in the back wall of the court.