The most irritating feature of the trial to the defendant was the presence
of the little woman in black, whose burning eyes never left for long his
face. He feigned to be unconscious of her regard, but nobody in the
court-room was more sure of that look of enduring, passionate hatred than
its victim. He had made her a widow, and her heart cried for revenge. That
was the story the eyes told dumbly.
From first to last the case was bitterly contested, and always with the
realization among those present--except for that somber figure in black,
whose beady eyes gimleted the defendant--that it was another move in the
fight between the rival copper kings. The district attorney had worked up
his case very carefully, not with much hope of securing a conviction, but
to mass a total of evidence that would condemn the Consolidated
leader-before the world.
To this end, the foreman, Donleavy, had been driven by a process of
sweating to turn State's evidence against his master. His testimony made
things look black for Harley, but when Hobart took the stand, a palpably
unwilling witness, and supported his evidence, the Ridgway adherents were
openly jubilant.
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