noon
Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that humble cottage door . BOOK III HAD BATSY LIVED ! It was the last day of the inquest , and to many it bade fair to be the least interesting . All the witnesses who had anything to say had long ago given in their testimony , and when at or near noon Sweetwater slid into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in obtaining near the coroner , it was to find in two faces only any signs of the eagerness and expectancy which filled his own breast to suffocation . But as these faces were those of Agnes Halliday and Amabel Page , he soon recognised that his own judgment was not at fault , and that notwithstanding outward appearances and the languid interest shown in the now lagging proceedings , the moment presaged an event full of unseen but vital consequence . Frederick was not visible in the great hall ; but that he was near at hand soon became evident from the change Sweetwater now saw in Amabel . For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze with only the faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable features , she roused as the hands of the clock moved toward noon , and glanced at the great door of entrance with an evil expectancy that startled even Sweetwater , so little had he really understood the nature of the passions labouring in that venomous breast .