I will retire."
"This place is free to you," answered Hollingsworth.
"As free as to ourselves," added Zenobia. "This long while past, you
have been following up your game, groping for human emotions in the
dark corners of the heart. Had you been here a little sooner, you
might have seen them dragged into the daylight. I could even wish to
have my trial over again, with you standing by to see fair play! Do
you know, Mr. Coverdale, I have been on trial for my life?"
She laughed, while speaking thus. But, in truth, as my eyes wandered
from one of the group to another, I saw in Hollingsworth all that an
artist could desire for the grim portrait of a Puritan magistrate
holding inquest of life and death in a case of witchcraft; in Zenobia,
the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit, but fair
enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his own; and, in
Priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul and body had been wasted by
her spells. Had a pile of fagots been heaped against the rock, this
hint of impending doom would have completed the suggestive picture.
"It was too hard upon me," continued Zenobia, addressing
Hollingsworth, "that judge, jury, and accuser should all be
comprehended in one man! I demur, as I think the lawyers say, to the
jurisdiction. But let the learned Judge Coverdale seat himself on
the top of the rock, and you and me stand at its base, side by side,
pleading our cause before him! There might, at least, be two
criminals instead of one.
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