Another pause and no answer. The Deemster repeated his question, and still there was no reply. "Listen; on your answer to this question the burden of the indictment must rest. Circumstance points but too plainly to a crime. It points to one man as perpetrator of that crime, and to five other men as accessories to it. But it is necessary that the jury should gather an idea of the motive that inspired it. And so I ask again, what was the difference between you and your brother at your interview on the afternoon of the day before yesterday?" There was a deep hush in the court. A gloomy, echoless silence, like that which goes before a storm, seemed to brood over the place. All eyes were turned to the witness-box. "Answer," said the Deemster, with head aslant. "I ask for an answer--I demand it." Then the witness lifted up her great, soft, liquid eyes to the Deemster's face, and spoke: "Is it the judge or the father that demands an answer?" she said. "The judge, the judge," the Deemster replied with emphasis, "we know of no father here." At that the burden that had rested on Mona's quivering face seemed to lift away. "Then, if it is the judge that asks the question, I will not answer it." The Deemster leaned back in his seat, and there was a low rumble among the people in the court. Dan found his breath coming audibly from his throat, his finger-nails digging trenches in his palms, and his teeth set so hard on his lips that both teeth and lips were bleeding. After a moment's silence the Deemster spoke again, but more softly than before, and in a tone of suavity. "If the judge has no power with you, make answer to the father," and he repeated his question. Amid silence that was painful Mona said, in a tremulous voice, "It is not in a court of justice that a father should expect an answer to a question like that." Then the Deemster lost all self-control, and shouted in his shrill treble that, whether as father or judge, the witness's answer he should have; that on that answer the guilty man should yet be indicted, and that even as it would be damning to that man so it should hang him. The spectators held their breath at the Deemster's words and looked aghast at the livid face on the bench. They were accustomed to the Deemster's fits of rage, but such an outbreak of wrath had never before been witnessed. The gloomy silence was unbroken for a moment, and then there came the sound of the suppressed weeping of the witness. "Stop that noise!" said the Deemster. "We know for whom you shed your tears. But you shall yet do more than cry for the man. If a word of yours can send him to the gallows, that word shall yet be spoken."