The court-house was crowded to suffocation—­there was not even standing room.  The long gallery was one living semicircle of eyes; ladies, in gleaming silks and fluttering plumes, thronged as to the opera, and slender throats were craned, and bright eyes glanced eagerly to catch one fleeting glimpse of the pale prisoner—­a baronet who had murdered his bride before the honey-moon was well over.

The case was opened in a long and eloquent speech by the counsel for the crown, setting forth the enormity of the crime, citing a hundred incidents of the horrible and unnatural deeds jealousy had made men commit, from the days of the first murderer.

His address was listened to in profoundest silence.  The charge he made out was a terribly strong one, and when he sat down and the first witness was called the hearts of Sir Everard Kingsland’s friends sunk like lead.

He pleaded “Not guilty!” with an eye that flashed and a voice which rang, and a look in his pale, proud face that no murderer’s face ever wore on this earth, and with those two words he had carried conviction to many a doubter.

“Call Sybilla Silver.”

All in black—­in trailing crape and sables, tall, stately, and dignified as a young duchess—­Sybilla Silver obeyed the call.

She was deeply veiled at first, and when she threw back the heavy black veil, and the dark, bright, beautiful face looked full at judge and jury, a low murmur thrilled through the throng.

Those who saw her for the first time stared in wonder and admiration at the tall young woman in black, with the face and air of an Indian queen, and those to whom she was known thought that Miss Silver had never, since they saw her first, looked half as handsome as she did this day.

Her brilliant bloom of color was gone; she was interestingly pale, and her great black eyes were unnaturally deep and mournful.

“Your name is Sybilla Silver, and you reside at Kingsland Court.  May we ask in what character—­as friend or domestic?”

“As both.  Sir Everard Kingsland has been my friend and benefactor from the first.  I have been treated as a confidential friend both by him and his mother.”

“By the deceased Lady Kingsland also, I conclude?”

“I was in the late Lady Kingsland’s confidence—­yes.”

“You were the last who saw her alive on the night of March tenth—­the night of the murder?”

“I was.”

“Where did you part from her?”

“At her own chamber door.  We bade each other good-night, and I retired to rest immediately.”

“What hour was that?”

“About ten minutes before eleven.”

“What communication were you making to Lady Kingsland at that hour?”

“I came to tell her the household had all retired—­that she could quit the house unobserved whenever she chose.”

“You knew, then, that she had an assignation for that night?”