ventured upon the circumstances (so far as she had been able to collect
them from the reports of those who had been present at the examination)
of our calamity. There was little indeed either to excite or to gratify
any interest or curiosity separate from the _personal_ interest
inevitably connected with a case to which there were two such parties
as a brutal, sensual, degraded ruffian, on one side in character of
accuser, and on the other as defendant, a meek angel of a woman, timid
and fainting from the horrors of her situation, and under the
licentious gaze of the crowd--yet, at the same time, bold in conscious
innocence, and in the very teeth of the suspicions which beset her,
winning the good opinion, as well as the good wishes of all who saw
her. There had been at this first examination little for her to say
beyond the assigning her name, age, and place of abode; and here it was
fortunate that her own excellent good sense concurred with her perfect
integrity and intuitive hatred of all indirect or crooked courses in
prompting her to an undisguised statement of the simple truth, without
a momentary hesitation or attempt either at evasion or suppression.
With equally good intentions in similar situations many a woman has
seriously injured her cause by slight evasions of the entire truth,
where nevertheless her only purpose has been the natural and ingenuous
one of seeking to save the reputation untainted of a name which she
felt to have been confided to her keeping. The purpose was an honorable
one, but erroneously pursued. Agnes fell into no such error. She
answered calmly, simply, and truly, to every question put by the
magistrates; and beyond _that_ there was little opportunity for
her to speak; the whole business of this preliminary examination being
confined to the deposition of the accuser as to the circumstances under
which he alleged the act of felonious appropriation to have taken
place. These circumstances were perfectly uninteresting, considered in
themselves; but amongst them was one which to us had the most shocking