The jury filed out, not to their luxurious quarters in the Paradise City Hotel, a mile away, but to a stark and ugly room in the Court-house where they must remain in acute discomfort until they arrived at a verdict. The Judge had his dinner brought to him in a private room adjoining theirs, and even the reporters and spectators snatched a hasty meal at the Dobton hostelry, so sure were they all that the jury would return within the hour. Mrs. Balfame did not take off her hat with its heavy veil, but sat in her quarters at the jail with several of her friends, outwardly calm, but with her mind on the rack and unable to share the dinner sent over from the Inn by Mr. Cummack for herself and her guests. The hours passed, however, and the jury did not return. Once the head of the foreman emerged, and the sheriff, misunderstanding his surly demand for a pitcher of ice water, rushed over for Mrs. Balfame, the Judge was summoned, and the reporters, men and women, raced one another up the Court-house stairs. Mrs. Balfame, schooled to the awful ordeal of hearing herself pronounced a murderess in one form or other, but bidden by her friends to augur an acquittal from a mere three hours' deliberation, walked in with her usual quiet remoteness and took her seat. She was sent back at once. Rush paced the road in front of the Court-house. He had little hope. He had studied their faces day by day and believed that several, at least, were persuaded of Mrs. Balfame's guilt. Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and Mrs. Cummack sat with Mrs. Balfame, who found the effort to maintain the high equilibrium demanded by her admiring friends as rasping an ordeal to her nerves as waiting for that final summons whose menace grew with every hour the jury wrangled. Finally she took off her hat and suggested that they knit, and the needles clicked through the desultory conversation until, after midnight, they all attempted to sleep. The Judge extended himself on a sofa in the private room devoted to his use; he dared not leave the Courthouse. He told the district attorney (who told it to the sheriff, who told it to the reporters) that the jury quarrelled so persistently and so violently that he found it impossible to sleep, and that the language they used was appalling. Midnight came and passed. The sob-sisters, worn out, went home. Miss Sarah Austin and Miss Alys Crumley had not returned to the Court-house after dinner. The sheriff appeared at the entrance of the courtroom and announced that the last trolley would leave for Elsinore and neighbouring towns within five minutes. Most of the spectators filed sleepily out. A few of Mrs. Balfame's less intimate but equally devoted friends remained in their seats near her empty chair, and shortly after midnight the warden's wife brought them over hot coffee and sandwiches.