Effie was therefore indicted
and placed at the bar. She pleaded guilty, but the prosecutor,
notwithstanding, led evidence, and at length Lindsay appeared as a
witness for the defence. The people who crowded the court had been aware
from report of the condition in which Lindsay stood; but the deep
silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer,
evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment.
The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could
be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that
it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The
oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came round
again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully and
wonderingly into the face of the witness, and the murmuring approbation
that broke out, in spite of the shrill "silence" of the crier, expressed
at once admiration of the man--criminal as he swore himself to be--and
pity for the accused. What could the issue be? Effie was acquitted, and
Lindsay sent back to gaol. Was he not to be tried? The officials felt
that the game was dangerous.
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