— — —In the room reserved for the witnesses, Belle studied the young German girl. Minnie Palmer had excitedly whispered: “That’s his sweetheart.” Belle turned her attention from the book at which she had been looking steadily during most of the tedious hours to Lili Schoppe, and with an intense and womanly inquisitiveness, considered her in every detail as she sat drooping and shuddering, yet holding herself with an intense reserve, on the end of the hard bench.
Belle gazed across the gas-lit room at Lili Schoppe until her surroundings were a mere blur to her; she studied the young girl as a botanist might study a flower under a microscopic lens, committing to heart the texture, the veining, the delicate root, the tender heart, the whole transparent and lovely structure, and as the botani
