No answer, save from Mr. Smoothbore, who observed, tartly:  “You have no right to assume that, Sergeant.”

“Let the young woman have a glass of water,” suggested the kindly judge.

“My lord, my lord!” cried Harry, with sudden passion, “he is not guilty.  Richard did not mean to steal the money; indeed he did not.  He only wished to get possession of it that my father might believe him to be a man of wealth.  He did but—­”

“Endeavor to compose yourself, young woman,” interposed the judge.  “The learned counsel will only ask what is necessary.”

“Take your time.  Miss Trevethick, take your time,” pursued Mr. Balais, in his blandest tones.  “The question is, how the prisoner became possessed of this money.  Now, tell us, did you not give it him with your own hands?”

The bell was still tolling in Richard’s brain, and yet he could hear the buzzing of a fly against a window of the court-house, and the careless whistle of some lad in the street without.  It was the same tune that the keeper at Crompton had been wont to whistle in his leisure moments at home; and his mind reverted with a flash to the glades of the stately park, the herds of deer, the high-mossed gate, which he had shut in the face of the hounds when they were chasing Carew’s carriage.  Was it the bang of the gate, or had Harry really answered in a firm voice, that resounded through the silent court-house, “No, Sir?”

“What!” said Mr. Balais, raising his voice a little.  “Do you mean to say, then—­and recollect that the fate of the prisoner at the bar may depend upon your reply to this question—­that Richard Yorke did not become possessed of these notes by your connivance, through your means, at all?”

“No, Sir, no,” answered Harry, passionately; “I can’t say that; indeed, Sir, I can not.  But he is innocent—­Richard is innocent—­he never meant to steal them.  O God, help me!” In her excitement, and not because she wished to do so, she had turned about, and once more caught sight of the prisoner at the bar.  It was her turn now to shrink appalled and petrified.  It was not reproach that she saw pictured in that well-loved face, but downright hate and loathing.  “He will never, never forgive me!” cried she, with a piteous wail; and then scream followed scream, and she was borne out in haste, and a doctor sent for.

Cross-examination was, of course, quite out of the question; and, indeed, Mr. Smoothbore was much too sagacious a man to wish to exercise that privilege.  The failure of the witness for the defense had proved the case of the prosecution.