When the coroner went to the parlor to convene the inquest, the crowd packed after him. Those who were not able to get into the room clustered in a bunch at the door, and protruded themselves in at the windows, silent and expectant.
Joe sat with his mother on one hand, Constable Frost on the other, and across the room was Ollie, wedged between fat Mrs. Sol Greening and her bony daughter-in-law, who claimed the office of ministrants on the ground of priority above all the gasping, sympathetic, and exclaiming females who had arrived after them.
Ollie was pale and exhausted in appearance, her face drawn and bloodless, like that of one who wakes out of an anesthetic after a surgical operation upon some vital part. Her eyes were hollowed, her nostrils pinched, but there was no trace of tears upon her cheeks. The neighbors said it was dry grief, the deepest and most lasting that racks the human heart. They pitied her, so young and fair, so crushed and bowed under that sudden, dark sorrow.
Mrs. Greening had thrown something black over the young widow's shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It kept slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. Sitting bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her eyes to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind the pale calm of his face.
No wonder she looked at him wild and fearful, people said. It was more than anybody could understand, that sudden development of fierce passion and treachery in a boy who always had been so shy and steady. No wonder she gazed at him that way, poor thing!
Of course they did not dream how far they were from interpreting that look in the young widow's eyes. There was one question in her life that morning, and one only, it seemed. It stood in front of the future and blocked all thought of it like a heavy door. Over and over it revolved in her mind. It was written in fire in her aching brain.
When they put Joe Newbolt on the witness-stand and asked him how it happened, would he stand true to his first intention and protect her, or would he betray it all?
That was what troubled Ollie. She did not know, and in his face there was no answer.