Damon took a deep breath. He spoke now very slowly as if he were weighing each word, but he spoke very distinctly as if he were anxious that the entire courtroom could hear. “You asked me whether I had come to any conclusions in the years since the suicide of my friend, Edward Cavan.” There was a ripple of interest in the crowd, then absolute silence as all strained to hear. Although Damon’s back was turned to them, it was as if the people assembled in the courtroom sensed that this was a crucial moment for him. Many leaned forward. Grace sat up as straight as she could, though she could not stop her chin from trembling. For some reason what flashed through her mind was Orlando’s saying “We shall not know for a long time about Edward.” Damon coughed that slightly nervous cough she recognized as meaning he was feeling something deeply. For a second he half-turned and caught Julia’s eye or looked for it obviously. “I have come to the conclusion,” he said, for a second facing the courtroom and then turning back to the chairman of the committee, “that although Edward Cavan may have been wrong in his belief that Communists and Socialists could and should work together, in the essence of his belief he was right and many of us were wrong.” Again he paused, before speaking more quickly and with a certain thrust. “That belief was that the intellectual must stand on the frontier of freedom of thought, especially in such times as these when that frontier is being narrowed down every day. He feared—and we know how rightly,” said Damon, his voice suddenly trembling, “the increasing apathy and retreat of the American people before such encroachments of fundamental civil rights as are represented by this committee.” He said the last words loudly and slowly, looking the chairman full in the face.