"
The policeman cast his not unkindly look over the figure of the
seamstress. "You stand here," he said; "I'll pass you in directly."
And soon by his offices the two were passed into the port of refuge.
They sat down side by side on the edge of a long, hard, wooden bench;
Creed fixing his eyes, whose colour had run into a brownish rim round
their centres, on the magistrate, as in old days sun-worshippers would
sit blinking devoutly at the sun; and Mrs. Hughs fixing her eyes on her
lap, while tears of agony trickled down her face. On her unwounded arm
the baby slept. In front of them, and unregarded, filed one by one
those shadows who had drunk the day before too deeply of the waters
of forgetfulness. To-day, instead, they were to drink the water of
remembrance, poured out for them with no uncertain hand. And somewhere
very far away, it may have been that Justice sat with her ironic smile
watching men judge their shadows. She had watched them so long about
that business. With her elementary idea that hares and tortoises should
not be made to start from the same mark she had a little given up
expecting to be asked to come and lend a hand; they had gone so far
beyond her. Perhaps she knew, too, that men no longer punished, but now
only reformed, their erring brothers, and this made her heart as light
as the hearts of those who had been in the prisons where they were no
longer punished.
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