Honora could not define her sensations—­excitement and shame and fear and hope and joy were so commingled.  The colours of the red and yellow brick had never been so brilliant in the sunshine.  They stopped before the new court-house and climbed the granite steps.  In her sensitive state, Honora thought that some of the people paused to look after them, and that some were smiling.  One woman, she thought, looked compassionate.  Within, they crossed the marble pavement, the Honourable Dave handed her into an elevator, and when it stopped she followed him as in a dream to an oak-panelled door marked with a legend she did not read.  Within was an office, with leather chairs, a large oak desk, a spittoon, and portraits of grave legal gentlemen on the wall.

“This is Judge Whitman’s office,” explained the Honourable Dave.  “He’ll let you stay here until the case is called.”

“Is he the judge—­before whom—­the case is to be tried?” asked Honora.

“He surely is,” answered the Honourable Dave.  “Whitman’s a good friend of mine.  In fact, I may say, without exaggeration, I had something to do with his election.  Now you mustn’t get flustered,” he added.  “It isn’t anything like as bad as goin’ to the dentist.  It don’t amount to shucks, as we used to say in Missouri.”

With these cheerful words of encouragement he slipped out of a side door into what was evidently the court room, for Honora heard a droning.  After a long interval he reappeared and beckoned her with a crooked finger.  She arose and followed him into the court room.

All was bustle and confusion there, and her counsel whispered that they were breaking up for the day.  The judge was stretching himself; several men who must have been lawyers, and with whom Mr. Beckwith was exchanging amenities behind the railing, were arranging their books and papers; some of the people were leaving, and others talking in groups about the room.  The Honourable Dave whispered to the judge, a tall, lank, cadaverous gentleman with iron-grey hair, who nodded.  Honora was led forward.  The Honourable Dave, standing very close to the judge and some distance from her, read in a low voice something that she could not catch—­supposedly the petition.  It was all quite as vague to Honora as the trial of the Jack of Hearts; the buzzing of the groups still continued around the court room, and nobody appeared in the least interested.  This was a comfort, though it robbed the ceremony of all vestige of reality.  It seemed incredible that the majestic and awful Institution of the ages could be dissolved with no smoke or fire, with such infinite indifference, and so much spitting.  What was the use of all the pomp and circumstance and ceremony to tie the knot if it could be cut in the routine of a day’s business?