noon
It is doubtful if he spoke a hundred words during the lean , celled weeks of his waiting , and then with a vacuous sort of apathy and solely upon advice of counsel . Even when he took the stand , undramatically , his voice , without even a plating of zest for life , was like some old drum with the parchment too tired to vibrate . Women , however , cried over him and the storm in his eyes and the curiously downy back of his neck where the last of his youth still marked him . To Sara , from her place in the first row , on those not infrequent occasions when his eyes fumbled for hers , he seemed to drown in her gaze -- back -- somewhere -- On a Friday at high noon the jury adjourned , the judge charging it with a solemnity that rang up to wise old rafters and down into one woman 's thirsty soul like life-giving waters . In part he told the twelve men about to file out , `` If there has been anything in my attitude during the recital of the defendant 's story , which has appeared to you to be in the slightest manner prejudiced one way or another , I charge you to strike such mistaken impressions from your minds . `` I have tried honestly to wash the slate of my mind clean to take down faithfully the aspects of this case which for two weeks has occupied this jury . `` If you believe the defendant guilty of the heinous crime in question , do not falter in your use of the power with which the law has vested you .