slandered him to Sir Richard Templeton, a marriage with the daughter of whom was projected in the prisoner’s mind, which there was reason to suppose, might have taken place.  Should the jury not be satisfied on that point, witnesses would be called, including the young lady herself, but unless the counsel for the defence challenged their statement, namely that this slander had been spoken which contributed, so it was argued, a motive for the crime it would be unnecessary to intrude on the poignant and private grief of persons so situated, and to insist on a scene which must prove to be so heart-rendingly painful.

(There was a slight movement of demur in the humane and crowded court at this; it was just these heart-rendingly painful things which were so thrilling.)

It was most important, continued counsel for the prosecution that the jury should fix these dates accurately in their minds.  Tuesday was June 21st; it was on that day the murdered man had gone to London, designing to return on June 23d, Thursday.  The prisoner had learned on Wednesday (June 22d) that aspersions had been made, false aspersions, on his character, and it was on Thursday that he learned for certain from the lips of the man to whom they had been made, who was the author of them.  The author was Mr. Godfrey Mills.  He had thereupon motored back from Falmer Park, and informed Mr. Taynton of this, and had left again for Falmer an hour later to make an appointment for Mr. Taynton to see Sir Richard.  He knew, too, this would be proved, that Mr. Godfrey Mills proposed to return from London that afternoon, to get out at Falmer station and walk back to Brighton.  It was certain from the finding of the body that Mr. Mills had travelled from London, as he intended, and that he had got out at this station.  It was certain also that at that hour the prisoner, burning for vengeance, and knowing the movements of Mr. Mills, was in the vicinity of Falmer.

To proceed, it was certain also that the prisoner in a very strange wild state had arrived at Mr. Taynton’s house about nine that evening, knowing that Mr. Mills was expected there at about 9.30.  Granted that he had committed the murder, this proceeding was dictated by the most elementary instinct of self-preservation.  It was also in accordance with that that he had gone round in the pelting rain late that night to see if the missing man had returned to his flat, and that he had gone to London next morning to seek him there.  He had not, of course, found him, and he returned to Brighton that afternoon.  In connection with this return, another painful passage lay before them, for it would be shown by one of the witnesses that again on the Friday afternoon the prisoner had visited the scene of the crime.  Mr. Taynton, in fact, still unsuspicious of anything being wrong had walked over the Downs that afternoon from Brighton to Falmer, and had sat down in view of the station where he proposed to catch a train back to Brighton, and had seen the prisoner stop his motor-car close to the corner where the body had been found, and behave in a manner inexplicable except on the theory that he knew where the body lay.  Subsequently to the finding of the body, which had occurred on Saturday evening, there had been discovered in a coppice adjoining a heavy bludgeon-like stick broken in two.  The top of it, which would be produced, bore the inscription M. ASSHE...