A hard trial to my courage to-day.

I have given evidence at the police-office, and have seen the monster who murdered her.
I could only look at him once.

I could just see that he was a giant in size, and that he kept his dull, lowering, bestial face turned toward the witness-box, and his bloodshot, vacant eyes staring on me.

For an instant I tried to confront that look; for an instant I kept my attention fixed on him--on his blotched face--on the short, grizzled hair above it--on his knotty, murderous right hand, hanging loose over the bar in front of him, like the paw of a wild beast over the edge of its den.

Then the horror of him--the double horror of confronting him, in the first place, and afterward of seeing that he was an old man--overcame me, and I turned away, faint, sick, and shuddering.
I never faced him again; and, at the end of my evidence, Robert considerately took me out.
When we met once more at the end of the examination, Robert told me that the prisoner never spoke and never changed his position.