One giggle sounded, in the back row, probably the same adenoidal snigger that had punctuated the trial from the start. There was no other laughter. Only a hush. The same kind of hush, Warner thought, that might have held the crowd in shock and incredulity, hundreds of years ago, if some candidate for an Inquisition bonfire had ventured to poke a little fun at the officiating priest. And T.J. was in fact performing certain priestly functions. _So what am I then? Advocatus diaboli?_ He saw Terence Mann's hand clench spasmodically and fall in a droop. Hunter said somberly, when the moment was right: "I have no objection to your odd sense of humor, Miss Blake, if you are enjoying it. But I would like a responsive answer." "Mr. Hunter, I did not think of James Doherty as a child. At any rate I tried not to. Apparently I rated his intelligence more highly than you do. I did not think that his religious beliefs had to be coddled and protected, or avoided the way you might avoid too much comment on a child's make-believe. Therefore in that letter to him I asked him about his beliefs, as one might ask any adult, and I wrote a little about my own ideas. It can't be called an attack unless you feel that the mere mention of an unreligious idea is an attack on religion. I'm aware that a lot of people do feel that way. They take all dissent as if it were an unkind criticism of themselves. Maybe Doherty did too, but I didn't think so at the time." Could she have won that round, or partly won it? It seemed to Cecil Warner that her voice had recovered some steadiness and coolness. Fielding looked somewhat impressed, as well as Helen Butler, LaSalle, and maybe Miss Wainwright. But the others were annoyed, or puzzled, or not listening. And about Fielding it was never possible to be sure. "He's 'Doherty' to you now? Not 'Jimmy' any more, just 'Doherty'?" She turned her face to the Judge with a look of blindness. "Must I answer that?" "You need not," said Judge Mann. "I think you might withdraw the question, Mr. Hunter." But even at that moment--the Judge manifestly friendly, Hunter showing up badly as his antagonism became too obviously personal and overdramatized--even at that more or less favorable moment Warner felt a change in Callista, a retreat or a weakening, as though before his eyes she had slipped further away from him, almost out of sight and hearing. He might, he supposed, be exaggerating her look of increased exhaustion, a fault in his own powers of observation. The pain slid down his arm again, compelling some part of his mind to mumble: _Heart?--and irrelevant?_ Callista was not necessarily in flight, not necessarily losing her desire to live. A better part of his mind recalled a better voice, speaking with a nearly incomprehensible sweetness: "_Living is journeying, and love's a region we can enter for a while._"