so that afternoon in the cedar wood; where was the black mote that kept the vision out?  She was suddenly aware—­and it came to her with a dizzying strangeness—­that there was in her own soul that reference of matters to the bar of Cary’s idea, thought, and judgment which, that day in the cedar wood, she had told him existed in that of her husband.  Were she and Lewis grown so much alike? or had her own soul always recognised, deferred to, rested upon, something in the inmost nature of the man into whose eyes she looked across this thronged and fevered space—­something of rare equanimity, dispassionate yet tender, calm, high, impartial, and ideal?  She did not know; she had not thought of it before.  Her eyes dilated.  Suddenly she saw the drawing-room at Fontenoy, green and gold and cool, with the portraits on the wall,—­Edmund Churchill, who fought with King Charles; Henry his son, who fled to Virginia and founded the family there; a second Edmund, aide-de-camp to Marlborough; two Governors of Virginia and a President of the Council; the Lely and the Kneller—­both Churchill women; and the fair face and form of Grandaunt Jacqueline for whom she was named.  She smelled the roses in the bowls, and she saw herself singing at her harp.  It was a night in June, the night of the great thunderstorm.  Lewis Rand had come down from the blue room, and Ludwell Cary entered from the darkness of the storm.

     “Stone walls do not a prison make,
       Nor iron bars a cage
     Minds innocent and quiet take
       That for a hermitage.”

Unity’s hand touched her.  “Jacqueline, are you tired?  Would you like to go away?”

The spell broke.  Jacqueline was most tired, and she would very much have liked to go away, but a glance at her cousin and at the lady with whom they had come determined the question.  That to both it was as good as a play, colour and animation proclaimed, and Jacqueline had not the heart to ring the curtain down.  She shook her head and smiled.  “We’ll stay it out.”

Her companion leaned back, relieved, and she was left to herself again.  She knew that Cary’s eyes were still upon her, but she would not turn her own that way.  She made herself look at the judges upon the bench, the District Attorney, the opposing lawyers, even the prisoner.  It was the heat and the thunder in the air that made her so tense and yet so tremulous.  Every nerve to-day was like a harpstring tightly drawn where every wandering air must touch it.  All this would soon be over—­then home and quiet!  The day was growing old; even now Mr. Hay was addressing the jury with an impressiveness that announced the closing periods of a speech.  When he was done, would not the court adjourn until to-morrow?  It was said the trial might last two weeks.  Mr. Hay sat down, but alas! before the applause and stir had ceased, Mr. Wickham was upon his feet.