“’We had often been there together before we were engaged.  It was a favourite walk of mine.’

“’Do you suppose that any one in this walk could hear cries proceeding from the low gate?’

“‘Certainly not.’

“The cross-examination of Crosby was as follows:—­

“Mr. A.——­ ’Were the prisoner’s clothes much disordered, as if he had been struggling?’

“‘No; he looked much as usual; but he was covered with blood.’

“’So we have heard you say.  Do you think that a man, in perfectly clean clothes, could have lifted the body out of the ditch without being covered with blood?’

“‘No:  perhaps not.’

“’Was there any means by which so much blood could have been accumulated in the ditch, unless the body had been thrown there?’

“‘I think not.  The pool were too big.’

“’I have two more questions to ask, and I beg the special attention of the jury to the answers.  Is the ditch, or is it not, very thickly overgrown with brambles and brushwood?’

“‘Yes; there be a many brambles.’

“’Do you think that any single man could drag a heavy body from the bottom of the ditch on to the bank, without severely scratching his hands?’

“‘No; I don’t suppose he could.’

“‘That is all I wish to ask.’

“Not being permitted to address the jury, it was all that he could do.  Then the Recorder summed up.  God forgive him the fatal accuracy with which he placed every link in a chain of evidence so condemning that I confess poor George seemed almost to have been taken in flagrante delicto.  The jury withdrew; and my sweet Mistress Dorothy, who had remained in court against my wish, suddenly dropped like an apple-blossom, and I carried her out in my arms.  When I had placed her in safety, I came back, and pressed through the crowd to hear the verdict.

“As I got in, the Recorder’s voice fell on my ear, every word like a funeral knell,—­’May the Lord have mercy on your soul!’

“I think for a few minutes I lost my senses.  I have a confused remembrance of swaying hither and thither in a crowd; of execration, and pity, and gaping curiosity; and then I got out, and some one passed me, whose arm I grasped.  It was Mr. A——.

“‘Tell me,’ I said, ’is there no hope?  No recommendation to mercy?  Nothing?’

“He dragged me into a room, and, seizing me by the button, exclaimed—­

“’We don’t want mercy; we want justice!  I say, sir, curse the present condition of the law!  It must be altered, and I shall live to see it.  If I might have addressed the jury—­there were a dozen points—­we should have carried him through.  Besides,’ he added, in a tone that seemed to apologize for such a secondary consideration, ’I may say to you that I fully believe that he is innocent, and am as sorry on his account as on my own that we have lost the case.’

“And so the day is ended. Fiat voluntas Domini!”