At first pure terror and avarice, bitter resentment of the wrongs Hugh had done her, and consequent blindness to the imminent peril in which he stood, had paralysed the moral sense. But later, after she had given evidence before the magistrates, she knew to the full that she was playing the most desperate game that ever woman played for money. The gambler’s instinct kept her mind clear; strength of will saved her from collapse. Hugh acquitted, all her money would be her own. Everything would be well. She would seek fresh scenes, blot this nightmare for ever from her life. Hugh condemned, she would do some mad deed to save him, summon Anna Cassaba from Syria, cast herself at the feet of the Home Secretary, surrender her thousands, and--throw herself over Waterloo Bridge. This was a doom, inevitable, meted out to her, rather than a scheme which her brain had devised. All the passionate yet stubborn racial energies of her nature were concentrated upon the supreme effort of making her last bid for fortune. It was a fixed idea, focussing the distempered mind and magnetising the exhausted flesh. Her last bid for fortune. She had made it. She found herself in Mrs. Bebro’s carriage, with the motherly lady by her side. How she had been transported thither from the swaying, reeling court, she did not know. Mrs. Bebro, with veil raised above red eyes, was holding her hand. Yet she had a vague knowledge that she had not fainted. “There, there, it is over now, dear,” said her companion, kindly. “It has been a trying time for you. We’ll soon get home, now, and a cup of tea and a lie down will do you good.” “Yes,” said Minna, hoarsely. “It will do me good.” “Poor young man,” said Mrs. Bebro. “I nearly cried my eyes out over him.” “It is a terrible thing,” said the girl, with set teeth, clenching the arm-strap with her free hand. “And I’m sure he’s innocent--poor fellow. I met him once--you remember? Such charming manners--like a prince. And your poor, dear father so fond of him too. He can’t have done it.” “I know he is innocent,” said Minna. Hitherto Mrs. Bebro had been very considerate in her allusions to the dreadful topic. But now human nature asserted itself. She was anxious to sympathise, also to relieve pent-up emotions; for the fascination of a murder upon those intimately connected with it is intense--it is a splash of blood upon the grey veil of decorous life, and cannot be hidden. She took up her parable, discoursed at length, in a hushed voice, such as she considered reverend upon the Day of Atonement. And as she talked, in the cramped space of the noiselessly gliding brougham, the horrors gradually grew upon the girl.