“Mr. Jannan, sir; and a witness,” a clerk answered.  The other gazed at the paper before him.

“Susan Brundon,” he read in a loud, uncompromising tone.  Jasper Penny’s eyes narrowed belligerently; he would see that these pothouse politicians gave Susan every consideration possible.  He was, with Stephen, a far from negligible force in the city elections.  “School mistress,” the Mayor read on.  “Never heard of her or her school.  Ah—­” Stephen Jannan had entered with Susan.

Jasper rose as she came forward, and the Mayor had the grace to remove his hat.  She wore, he saw, the familiar dress of wool, with a sober, fringed black silk mantle, black gloves and an inconspicuous bonnet.  She met his harried gaze, and smiled; but beneath her greeting he was aware of a supreme tension.  There was, however, no perceptible nervousness in the manner of her accepting an indicated place; she sat with her hands quietly folded in her lap, the mantle drooping back over the chair.  Stephen Jannan, facing the Mayor, made a concise statement in a cold, deliberate voice.  “I now propose to show your honour,” he finished, “that, between the hours in which Daniel Culser is said to have been shot to death, my client was peacefully in the company of Miss Brundon, strolling in an opposite quarter of the city.”

“Hoffernan,” the Mayor pronounced, waving toward the seated woman.  The clerk advanced with a Bible; and, rising, Susan followed the words of the oath in a low, clear voice.  To Jasper Penny the occasion seemed intolerably prolonged, filled with needless detail.  Never had Susan Brundon appeared more utterly desirable, never had his need to protect, shield, her been stronger.  He—­protect her, he added bitterly; rather he had betrayed her, dragged her immaculate sweetness down into the foul atmosphere of a criminal hearing.  His attention, fastening on the trivialities of the interior, removed him in a species of self-hypnotism from the actualities of the scene.  He heard, as if from a distance, the questioning of the Mayor, “At what time, exactly, did you say?  How did you know that?” Susan said, “I saw the clock at the back of the hall.  I noticed it because I wondered if the younger children had retired.”

“You say you walked with Mr. Penny—­where?...  How long did you remain at the river?  No way of knowing.  Seemed surprisingly short, I’ll venture.”  Why didn’t Stephen put an end to such ill-timed jocularity?  “And Mr. Penny had spoken to you of his—­his relations with Mrs. Scofield, the woman in whose house Culser was killed.  Did he refer to her on this particular evening, standing by the river’s brink?” Susan replied in the negative.  “Did he seem ill at ease, worried about anything?  Was he hurried in manner?”