Alison hung her head, and frowned in absolute shame and despair, already perceiving how matters must go, and feeling as if the hope of her brother’s vindication were slipping away—­reft from her by Rachel’s folly.  Colin gave an indignant sigh, and whispering to her, “Come out when Lady Temple does, I will meet you,” he made his way out of court.

There had been a moment’s pause after Rachel’s “I thought so,” and then the chairman spoke to the counsel for the prosecution.  “Mr. Murray, can you carry the case any further by other witnesses?  At present I see no case to go to the jury.  You will see that the witness not only does not set up any case of embezzlement, but rather loads to an inference in the contrary direction.”

“No, sir,” was the answer; “I am afraid that I can add nothing to the case already presented to you.”

Upon this, the chairman said,

“Gentlemen of the Jury,—­The case for the prosecution does not sustain the indictment or require me to call on the prisoner for his defence, and it is your duty to find him not guilty.  You will observe that we are not trying a civil action, in respect of the large sum which he has received from the young lady, and for which he is still accountable to her; nor by acquitting him are you pronouncing that he has not shown himself a man of very questionable honesty, but only that the evidence will not bring him within the grasp of the criminal law, as guilty of embezzlement under the statute, and this because of the looseness of the arrange ments, that had been implied instead of expressed.  It is exceedingly to be regretted that with the best intentions and kindest purposes, want of caution and experience on her part should have enabled the prisoner thus to secure himself from the possibility of a conviction; but there can be no doubt that the evidence before us is such as to leave no alternative but a verdict of not guilty.”

The very tenderness and consideration of the grey-haired Sir Edward Morden’s tone were more crushing to Rachel than severe animadversions on her folly would have been from a stranger.  Here was she, the Clever Woman of the family, shown in open court to have been so egregious a dupe that the deceiver could not even be punished, but must go scot-free, leaving all her wrongs unredressed!  To her excited, morbid apprehension, magnified by past self-sufficiency, it was as though all eyes were looking in triumph at that object of general scorn and aversion, a woman who had stepped out of her place.  She turned with a longing to rush into darkness and retirement when she was called to return to her mother, and even had she still been present, little would she have recked that when the jury had, without many moments’ delay, returned a verdict of “Not Guilty,” the prisoner received a strong, stem reprimand from Sir Edward, to whom he replied with a bow that had in it more of triumph than of acceptance.

Burning tears of disappointment were upon Alison’s cheek, the old hopeless blank was returning, and her brother might come back in vain, to find his enemy beyond his reach.  Here was an end alike of his restoration and of Ermine’s happiness!