The old man lifted his wild eyes to those of his friend, and searched the expression there as if his life depended on it. "William Phipps, you think this woman innocent?" "I feel that she is innocent, but magistrates do not judge by feeling. Justice appeals only to the brain, while mercy is a child of the heart. Samuel Parris, as I came from Barbara Stafford's prison, it was with a thankful spirit that God had not made me one of her judges." "But I--I am her accuser!" cried out the old man, in passionate sorrow. "But you had good grounds. This charge came not from you or yours, lightly or with malice: of that I am certain," said the governor, soothingly. "But it came from me in terror and sore perplexity. The sight of my child possessed with the evil one urged me on. William, William, I thought of her, rather than of God's service! It is this that troubles me." "But how of the maiden? Is she better or does this fiend rend her yet?" "She is better. Since the sound sleep into which the woman cast her, Elizabeth has been quiet; but thoughtful as I never saw her before. The flush has left her face and half the time her eyes are full of tears, but she says little." "These are favorable symptoms," answered Sir William. "Does the maiden still persist in thinking this woman the cause of her malady?" "Both its cause and its cure. To her she has been an angel of wrath and of mercy both. But another cause of sorrow has sprung up in my household--Abigail Williams!" "What, the dark-eyed girl that Lady Phipps thought so beautiful? Has this wicked contagion seized on her also?" "Worse than my child. She seems smitten to the soul with sullen sorrow and deadly hate. Above all she dreaded old Tituba, who followed her from room to room like a dog at first, but when the girl drove her away, she sat down on the kitchen hearth with her feet in the ashes, refusing to eat or sleep, but kept up a weird chant that filled the house night and day with deathly music." "Does this old woman accuse any one?" "Nay, she simply accused herself. Once or twice she has gone out to the forest and stayed all day. At last she persuaded Abigail to go into the woods with her. After that, the strange animosity which had seized upon the maiden died out, and she was much with old Tituba who went quietly about her household work again." Sir William listened to all this with grave attention. He was striving to judge how far the disturbed state of the minister's household had arisen from natural causes, but in his profound ignorance of all those sources of irritation which had preceded Barbara Stafford's arrest, he was unable to give them any solution save that of witchcraft, strongly as his sound judgment rebelled against it. "Tell me, and speak I adjure you in the fear of God--tell me, William Phipps, if after hearing the evidence on which I have accused this woman, you can find one reason for thinking the charge of witchcraft without just foundation."