He was not outside, in the witnesses’ lobby, waiting for her as she had expected. She enquired of the policeman on duty. He had seen him pass, pointed out the way he had gone. She followed his directions, found herself in the courtyard. Gerard was nowhere to be seen. She hung about for a while, went outside and walked up and down the hurrying pavement, waited again by the entrance. But no Gerard. Disappointed and anxious, she retraced her steps, up worn bleak stairs, through gloomy corridors, and finally lost herself completely. But she hurried on with downcast eyes. At last she arrived at an entrance guarded by a policeman. It was not the door with which she was familiar. A sudden failing seized her. She could not return to her seat and present herself alone before the gaze of all those men. The valiantest of women has small feminine cowardices, which she does not seek to overcome. To leave the precincts was equally impossible. She resolved to wait, and walked bravely up and down the lobby. A few patient figures of men and women were sitting by the wall. Scarcely speculating who these might be, she sat down finally by an old man, poorly clad, who was leaning forward, his chin supported on his hands, regarding the pavement with lack-lustre eyes. Then for the first time she was able to think with some coherence of the stupendous nature of the deed she had just committed. She put her ungloved hands over her burning eyes as if to shut out the scene that had blazed before them a few moments ago. The words of the counsel, her own replies, reverberated distinct in her ears. She would have given a year of her life for Gerard’s protecting presence. So absorbed was she that she did not hear a rough voice call out a strange name, nor notice the old man by her side rise in weary obedience to the summons. When, later, she withdrew her hands from her face, she did not heed his absence. Now and then a barrister or a document-laden clerk hurried past her. She waited in a torture of anxiety. At last the policeman approached and asked her if she was a witness in this case. Her reply gave him a clue to her interest. He smiled indulgently. This was the witnesses’ lobby of the Recorder’s Court. The Sunnington case was being tried in the chief court, before the judge; just the other end of the Old Bailey. Irene stamped her foot with vexation. Suspense had made her lose count of time. It seemed as if she had been absent for hours. What had happened? She must know. And here she had been waiting, like a fool, in a wrong part of the building. “Direct me to the door the prisoner will come out by.” The policeman was still indulgent. “If he’s sentenced or the case is adjourned, he’ll go down the dock and you won’t see him. If he gets off he may leave by the main exit.” “That’s what I want,” said Irene.