Sampson was gloomy that night. He did not go to sleep until long after
two, although he went to bed at eleven--an unspeakably early hour for
him. Things certainly looked black for the old man. If Stevens was to
be believed, James Hildebrand was a most stupendous rascal. And yet,
to look at him--to study his fine, gentle old face, his tired but
unwavering eyes, his singularly unrepentant mien--one could hardly
be blamed for doubting the man's capacity for doing the evil and
reprehensible deed that was laid at his door. Sampson hated to think of
him as guilty. More than that, he hated to have Miss Hildebrand think
that he thought of him as guilty.
He laid awake for three mortal hours trying to think what Miss
Hildebrand meant by looking at him as she did from time to time. Not
once but a score of times her gaze met bis--usually after a damaging
reply by Mr. Stevens, or some objectionable question by the district
attorney--and always she appeared to be intent on divining, if possible,
just what its effect would be on him.
Her clear, soft eyes looked straight into his for an instant, and he saw
something in them that he took for anxiety. That was all: just anxiety.
It couldn't, of course, be anything else--and, why shouldn't she be
anxious? Anybody would be under the circumstances. As a matter of fact,
he was a little anxious himself, and certainly he was not as vitally
interested as she in the welfare of James W. Hildebrand. But after
thinking it all over again, he wasn't so sure that it was anxiety. He
was forced to believe that she looked confident, almost serene--as
if there was not the slightest doubt in her mind that her grandfather
couldn't possibly have done a single one of the things that Mr. Stevens
accused him of doing.
Sampson was perturbed. He couldn't divest himself of the suspicion that
she expected him to also disbelieve every word that the witness uttered.
It was most upsetting. He made up his mind that he would not look at her
at all on the following day. But even that resolution didn't put him to
sleep. Not at all. The more he thought of it, the wider awake he became.
True, she had looked at the other jurors from time to time--especially
at the rehabilitated No. 7, the rubicund bachelor and the spectacled No.
12. But he was sure that she did not look at them in the same way that
she looked at him, nor as often, nor as long. It seemed to him that even
when she looked at the others, she always allowed her glance to return
to him for an instant after its somewhat indifferent tour of inspection.
He remembered indulging in a rather close and critical inspection of
the countenances of his fellow jurors at one time, during a lull in the
proceedings, and that calculating but not unkind scrutiny convinced him
of one thing: they certainly were not much to look at.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account