not and the silence, which seemed so awful, remained unbroken, I
pulled the curtain aside and looked in again. There was no change
in your posture; and, alarmed now for your sake rather than for my
own, I did not dare to go till Bela came back. So I stayed
watching."

"Stayed where?"

"In a dark corner of that same room. I never left it till the
crowd came in. Then I slid out behind them."

"Was the child with you--at your side I mean, all this time?"

"I never let go her hand."

"Woman, you are keeping nothing back?"

"Nothing but my terror at the sight of Bela running in all bloody
to escape the people pressing after him. I thought then that I had
been the death of servant as well as master. You can imagine my
relief when I heard that yours was but a passing attack."

Sincerity was in her manner and in her voice. The judge breathed
more easily, and made the remark:

"No one with hearing unimpaired can realise the suspicion of the
deaf, nor can any one who is not subject to attacks like mine
conceive the doubts with which a man so cursed views those who
have been active about him while the world to him was blank."