He pulled almost distractedly at his beard with bony fingers, and repeated plaintively: 

“A wild mind in an innocent body—­h’m, ha!”

“If only Mr. Grundy can be brought to comprehension of such a phenomenon!” murmured Mrs. Chetwinde.

It was obvious to Dion that his two friends feared for the result.

The Judge had left the bench.  An hour passed by, and the chime of a clock striking five dropped down coolly, almost frostily, to the hot and curious crowd.  Mrs. Clarke sat very still.  Esme Darlington had returned to his place beside her, and she spoke to him now and then.  Hadi Bey wiped his handsome rounded brown forehead with a colored silk handkerchief; and Aristide Dumeny, with half-closed eyes, ironically examined the crowd, whispered to a member of his Embassy who had accompanied him into court, folded his arms and sat looking down.  Beadon Clarke’s face was rigid, and a fierce red, like the red of a blush of shame, was fixed on his cheeks.  His mother had pulled a thick black veil with a pattern down over her face, and was fidgeting perpetually with a chain of small moonstones set in gold which hung from her throat to her waist.  Daventry, blinking and twitching, examined documents, used his handkerchief, glanced at his watch, hitched his gown up on his shoulders, looked at Mrs. Clarke and looked away.

Uneasiness, like a monster, seemed crouching in the court as in a lair.

At a quarter-past five, the Judge returned to the bench.  He had received a communication from the jury, who filed in, to say, through their foreman, that they could not agree upon a verdict.  A parley took place between the foreman and the Judge, who made inquiry about their difficulties, answered two questions, and finally dismissed them to further deliberations, urging them strongly to try to arrive at an unanimous conclusion.

“I am willing to stay here till nightfall,” he said, in a loud and almost menacing voice, “if there is any chance of a verdict.”

The jury, looking weary, harassed and very hot, once more disappeared, the Judge left the bench, and the murmuring crowd settled down to another period of waiting.

To Dion it seemed that a great tragedy was impending.  Already Mrs. Clarke had received a blow.  The fact that the jury had publicly announced their disagreement would be given out to all the world by the newspapers, and must surely go against Mrs. Clarke even if she got a verdict ultimately.

“Do you think there is any chance still?” he said to Mrs. Chetwinde.

“Oh, yes.  As I told you, Cynthia always manages to get what she wants.”

“I shouldn’t think she can ever have wanted anything so much as she wants the right verdict to-day.”

“I don’t know that,” Mrs. Chetwinde replied, with a rather disconcerting dryness.

She was using her fan slowly and monotonously, as if, perhaps, she were trying to make her mind calm by the repetition of a physical act.