CHAPTER XXIII

There were golden chrysanthemums on the judge's bench; they looked like burning banners. The prisoner, too, had a look in her eyes that was a challenge to the crowded court, as the clerk read the indictment. The judge, a plump, elderly man with an eighteenth-century face, looked expectantly at the Attorney-General. "My lord--I am instructed that the Crown offers no evidence against this prisoner." The gasp that went round the room sounded like the rustle of trees in a rising wind. "Do I understand that the charge a…