prisoner sitting up by the fire in the kitchen with the baby on her lap.  She hadn’t cried or seemed low at all, as she did the night before.  I thought she had a strange look with her eyes, and she got a bit flushed towards evening.  I was afraid of the fever, and I thought I’d call and ask an acquaintance of mine, an experienced woman, to come back with me when I went out.  It was a very dark night.  I didn’t fasten the door behind me; there was no lock; it was a latch with a bolt inside, and when there was nobody in the house I always went out at the shop door.  But I thought there was no danger in leaving it unfastened that little while.  I was longer than I meant to be, for I had to wait for the woman that came back with me.  It was an hour and a half before we got back, and when we went in, the candle was standing burning just as I left it, but the prisoner and the baby were both gone.  She’d taken her cloak and bonnet, but she’d left the basket and the things in it....I was dreadful frightened, and angry with her for going.  I didn’t go to give information, because I’d no thought she meant to do any harm, and I knew she had money in her pocket to buy her food and lodging.  I didn’t like to set the constable after her, for she’d a right to go from me if she liked.”

The effect of this evidence on Adam was electrical; it gave him new force.  Hetty could not be guilty of the crime—­her heart must have clung to her baby—­else why should she have taken it with her?  She might have left it behind.  The little creature had died naturally, and then she had hidden it.  Babies were so liable to death—­and there might be the strongest suspicions without any proof of guilt.  His mind was so occupied with imaginary arguments against such suspicions, that he could not listen to the cross-examination by Hetty’s counsel, who tried, without result, to elicit evidence that the prisoner had shown some movements of maternal affection towards the child.  The whole time this witness was being examined, Hetty had stood as motionless as before:  no word seemed to arrest her ear.  But the sound of the next witness’s voice touched a chord that was still sensitive, she gave a start and a frightened look towards him, but immediately turned away her head and looked down at her hands as before.  This witness was a man, a rough peasant.  He said: 

“My name is John Olding.  I am a labourer, and live at Tedd’s Hole, two miles out of Stoniton.  A week last Monday, towards one o’clock in the afternoon, I was going towards Hetton Coppice, and about a quarter of a mile from the coppice I saw the prisoner, in a red cloak, sitting under a bit of a haystack not far off the stile.  She got up when she saw me, and seemed as if she’d be walking on the other way.  It was a regular road through the fields, and nothing very uncommon to see a young woman there, but I took notice of her because she looked white and scared.  I should have thought she was a beggar-woman, only for her good clothes.