until he came to West Lynne this last spring, as
Sir Francis Levison, to oppose Mr. Carlyle. Richard Hare had also
disappeared--had never been seen or heard of, and most people supposed
he was dead. To what end then should I confess? Perhaps only to
be suspected myself. Besides, I had taken the money upon a certain
understanding, and it was only fair that I should keep to it."

If Richard Hare was subjected to a severe cross-examination, a far more
severe one was awaiting Otway Bethel. The judge spoke to him only once,
his tone ringing with reproach.

"It appears then, witness, that you have retained within you, all these
years, the proofs of Richard Hare's innocence?"

"I can only acknowledge it with contrition, my lord."

"What did you know of Thorn in those days?" asked the counsel.

"Nothing, save that he frequented the Abbey Wood, his object being Afy
Hallijohn. I had never exchanged a word with him until that night; but
I knew his name, Thorn--at least, the one he went by, and by his
addressing me as Bethel, it appeared that he knew mine."

The case for the prosecution closed. An able and ingenious speech was
made for the defence, the learned counsel who offered it contending
that there was still no proof of Sir Francis having been the guilty man.
Neither was there any proof that the catastrophe was not the result of
pure accident. A loaded gun, standing against a wall in a small room,
was not a safe weapon, and he called upon the jury not rashly to convict
in the uncertainty, but to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt.
He should call no witnesses, he observed, not even to character.
Character! for Sir Francis Levison! The court burst into a grin; the
only sober face in it being that of the judge.

The judge summed up. Certainly not in the prisoner's favor; but, to
use the expression of some amidst the audience, dead against him. Otway
Bethel came in for a side shaft or two from his lordship; Richard Hare
for sympathy. The jury retired about four o'clock, and the judge quitted
the bench.

A very short time they were absent. Scarcely a quarter of an hour. His
lordship returned into court, and the prisoner was again placed in the
dock. He was the hue of marble, and, in his nervous agitation, kept
incessantly throwing back his hair from his forehead--the action already
spoken of. Silence was proclaimed.

"How say you, gentlemen of the jury? Guilty, or not guilty?"

"GUILTY."

It was a silence to