"Have you agreed upon a verdict?" repeated Judge Brentano, a little
impatiently.
"We have," replied the foreman, Hugh H. Fulton, rising and displaying
a paper which he held in his right hand.
"Let the Clerk of the Court read it."
A. J. Harris, the Clerk, was already in front of the railing to
receive the paper. He took it to his desk, and holding it under an
incandescent lamp, for the courtroom was dark, he read, in a loud
voice:
"We, the jury, find the defendant, Dora McDonald, not guilty."
It was as though you had touched a match to a pile of gunpowder. The
people in the courtroom seemed to explode. They did not cheer, or
applaud, or shout, and yet they appeared to be doing all of them. The
tension was broken and a sort of bubbling effervescence took its place.