“I can call no witnesses; for it is one of the terrible fatalities of my situation that I stand alone, with none to corroborate my assertions.  Strange, inexplicable coincidences drag me down; not the malice of men, but the throttling grasp of circumstances.  I am the victim of some diabolical fate, which only innocent blood will appease; but though I am slaughtered for crimes I did not commit, I know, oh!  I know, that behind fate, stands god!—­the just and eternal God, whom I trust, even in this my hour of extremest peril.  Alone in the world, orphaned, reviled, wrecked for all time, without a ray of hope, I, Beryl Brentano, deny every accusation brought against me in this cruel arraignment; and I call my only witness, the righteous God above us, to hear my solemn asseveration:  I am innocent of this crime; and when you judicially murder me in the name of Justice, your hands will be dyed in blood that an avenging God will one day require of you.  Appearances, circumstances, coincidences of time and place, each, all, conspire to hunt me into a convict’s grave; but remember, my twelve judges, remember that a hopeless, forsaken, broken-hearted woman, expecting to die at your hands, stood before you, and pleaded first and last—­Not Guilty!  Not Guilty!—­”

A moment she paused, then raised her arms toward heaven and added, with a sudden exultant ring in her thrilling voice, and a strange rapt splendor in her uplifted eyes: 

“Innocent!  Innocent!  Thou God knowest!  Innocent of this sin, as the angels that see Thy face.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

As a glassy summer sea suddenly quivers, heaves, billows under the strong steady pressure of a rising gale, so that human mass surged and broke in waves of audible emotion, when Beryl’s voice ceased; for the grace and beauty of a sorrowing woman hold a spell more potent than volumes of forensic eloquence, of juridic casuistry, of rhetorical pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed.  Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; “while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood.”  With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a human life, and the skeleton hand of death was already outstretched.  Listening to the calm, mournful voice which alone had power to stir and thrill his pulses, he could not endure the pain of watching the exquisite face that haunted him day and night; and when he computed the chances of her conviction, a maddening perception of her danger made his brain reel.