Meanwhile he turned to glance at the prisoner.

John Potts looked like a man without a hope in the world.  We have already seen that an awful change had come over him since the day of his arrest, three months before.  Now, as he leaned forward where he sat, and rested his head upon his skeleton hands, that clasped the top of the railing of the dock, his face, or what could be seen of it, was ghastly pale with agony, while his emaciated frame trembled from head to foot. He looked like a guilty man. And his looks were now, as they had been from the moment in which the dead body of his master had been discovered, the strongest testimony against him.

For all that, you know, they cannot hang a man merely because he looks as if he ought to be hung.

After an absence of about fifteen minutes, the jury, led by a bailiff, returned to the court-room.

The prisoner looked up, shivered, and dropped his head upon his clasped hands again.

The dead silence of breathless expectation in the court-room was now broken by the solemn voice of the Clerk of Arraigns, inquiring, in measured tones: 

“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?”

“We have,” answered the foreman, a jolly, red-headed, round bodied Banff baker.

“Prisoner at the bar, stand up and look upon the jury,” ordered the clerk.

The poor, abject, and terrified wretch tottered to his feet and stood, pallid, shaking, and grasping the front rails of the dock for support.

“Gentlemen of the jury, look upon the prisoner.  How say you, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the felony herewith he stands charged?” demanded the clerk.

“We find the charge against the prisoner to be—­NOT PROVEN,"[A] answered the foreman, speaking for the whole in a strong, distinct voice, that was heard all over the court-room.

[Footnote A:  “Not Proven”—­a Scotch verdict in uncertain cases.]

On hearing the verdict which saved him from death, even if it did not vindicate him, John Potts let go the rails of the dock and fell back in his chair in a half-fainting condition.

“The prisoner is discharged from custody.  The Court is adjourned,” said the presiding baron, rising and leaving his seat.

While one of the bailiffs was kindly supporting the faltering steps of the released prisoner, in taking him from the dock, and while the crowd in the court-room were pouring out of the front doors, the presiding judge, Baron Stairs, came down to the place where the young Duke of Hereward still sat.  He had known the duke’s father, and had also known the duke himself from boyhood.  He now held out his hand cordially, saying: 

“I am very glad to see your grace, though the occasion is a painful one.  Let me congratulate you on your marriage, I wish you every good thing in life.  You have already got the best thing—­a good wife.  I knew Miss Levison.  A finer young woman never lived.  I congratulate you with all my heart, Duke!”