“I ask you, Mr. Trevethick,” continued the counsel, solemnly, “whether or not, in a conversation which you held with the prisoner upon a certain day last month, you mentioned two thousand pounds as the sum you must needs see in his possession before you could listen to any proposition of his with respect to your daughter’s hand?”

“I did not.”

“You never spoke of that particular sum to him at all?”

“Never at all.”

It was Mr. Balais who looked up at the sky-light this time—­as though he expected a thunder-bolt.

“The notes, of which we have heard so much, as being hoarded in this ingenious box of yours—­and that you are a very ingenious man, Mr. Trevethick, there is no doubt—­this box, I say, was kept in a certain cupboard, was it not?”

“It was.”

“And now, please to look at the jury when you answer me this question:  Where was this particular cupboard situated, Mr. Trevethick?”

Into the landlord’s impassive face there stole for the first time a look of disquiet, and his harsh, monotonous voice grew tremulous as he replied, “The cupboard was in my daughter’s bedroom.”

“That will do, Mr. Trevethick, for the present,” observed Mr. Balais, with emphasis; “though I shall probably have the opportunity of seeing you another time”—­and he glanced significantly toward the dock—­“in another place.”

CHAPTER XXX.

FOR THE DEFENSE.

When Mr. Balais rose again it was to speak for the defense, and he addressed the jury amidst an unbroken silence.  So rapt, indeed, was the attention of his audience that the smack of a carter’s whip, as he went by in the street below, was resented by many a frown as an impertinent intrusion; and even the quarters of the church clock were listened to with impatience, lest its iron tongue should drown a single sentence.  This latter interruption did not, however, often take place, for Mr. Balais was as brief in speech as he was energetic in action.  He began by at once allowing the main facts which the prosecution had proved—­that the notes had been taken from Trevethick’s box, and found in the prisoner’s possession, who had been detected in the very act of endeavoring to change them for notes of another banking company.  But what he maintained was, that this exchange was not, as Mr. Smoothbore had suggested, effected for the purpose of realizing the money, but simply of throwing dust in the prosecutor’s eyes.  He had changed the notes only with the intention of returning his own money to Trevethick under another form.  Even so young a man, and one so thoroughly ignorant of the ways of the world and of business matters as was his client, must surely have been aware, if using the money for himself had been his object, that it could be traced in notes of the Mining Company as easily as in notes of the Bank of England; nay, by this very