He was at his best now as he stood facing the Jury. Fayre, who had persuaded Cynthia to allow Miss Allen to take her home before lunch, fell so completely under the spell of his eloquence that, for a few brief moments, he forgot his personal interest in the case and was lost in admiration of the sheer genius that inspired it. It was not the first time he had heard Kean plead. One of his first actions on reaching England had been to go to the Old Bailey to see his old friend in harness. He had not been disappointed then, in spite of all he had heard of his ability, but to-day Kean spoke like a man inspired. One by one he took the very points which the Counsel for the Crown had used so effectively and turned them to his client’s advantage. He possessed a beautiful voice and knew how to make the most of it. He had had Cynthia in the box the day before and had examined her with a skill that was so little apparent that it was all the more telling. And Cynthia, partly helped by her own quick wits and partly as the result of careful coaching, had backed him up nobly. He used her evidence now as the basis of his speech, turning even the quarrel between her and Leslie to advantage and playing on the emotions of his audience with a skill and audacity that was little short of amazing. Given a Latin jury, Fayre told himself, the result would have been a foregone conclusion by now and, not for the first time in his life, he cursed British stolidity as he gazed hopelessly at the inscrutable countenances of the twelve respectable citizens who composed the jury and tried in vain to follow the progress of their thoughts. To his excited fancy they seemed the only people in the packed courthouse who remained totally unmoved by Kean’s eloquence. Then, suddenly it was over and, like a douche of icy water, after the burning flow of Kean’s impassioned appeal, came the calm, measured accents of the Judge as he summed up. By the time he had finished Fayre was once more in the depths of depression and in bad shape to face the long wait while the Jury considered their verdict. He watched them file out feeling as near despair as he had ever been in his life and then settled down to endure a suspense that seemed interminable but which, in reality, lasted just over an hour and a half. By the time the jury returned, the proceedings seemed to Fayre to have taken on all the unreality of a nightmare. As one in a dream he heard the Judge’s voice break the tense silence of the crowded court. “Are you all agreed?” “We are all agreed, My Lord.” Then, as his numbed brain mechanically registered the fact that the foreman, surprisingly, spoke with a strong Cockney accent instead of the North-country burr he had expected, came the verdict. “We find the prisoner guilty, My Lord.” Chapter XXIII