down to Oxford and shut himself up in
his own room, a prey to fear and remorse. He sported his oak, and never
went out. All his exercise was that of a wild beast in its den, walking
restlessly up and down.

But all his caution did not prevent the prisoner's solicitor from getting
to him. One morning, at seven o'clock, a clerk slipped in at the heels of
his scout, and, coming to young Wardlaw's bedside, awoke him out of an
uneasy slumber by serving him with a subpoena to appear as Robert
Penfold's witness.

This last stroke finished him. His bodily health gave way under his
mental distress. Gastric fever set in, and he was lying tossing and
raving in delirium, while Robert Penfold was being tried at the Central
Criminal Court.

The trial occupied six hours, and could easily be made rather
interesting. But, for various reasons, with which it would not be good
taste to trouble the reader, we decide to skim it.

The indictment contained two counts; one for forging the note of hand,
the other for uttering it knowing it to be forged.

On the first count, the Crown was weak, and had to encounter the evidence
of Undercliff, the distinguished expert, who swore that the hand which
wrote "Robert Penfold" was not, in his opinion, the hand that had written
the body of the instrument. He gave many minute reasons in support of
this. And nothing of any weight was advanced contra. The judge directed
the jury to acquit the prisoner on that count.

But, on the charge of uttering, the evidence was clear, and on the
question of knowledge it was, perhaps, a disadvantage to the prisoner
that he was tried in England, and could not be heard in person, as he
could have been in a foreign court; above all, his resistance to the
officers eked out the presumption that he knew the note had been forged
by some person or other, who was probably his accomplice.

The absence of his witness, Wardlaw junior, was severely commented on by
his counsel; indeed, he appealed to the judge to commit the said Wardlaw
for contempt of court. But Wardlaw senior was recalled, and swore that he
had left his son in a burning fever, not expected to live. And declared,
with genuine emotion, that nothing but a high sense of public duty had
brought _him_ hither from his dying son's bedside. He also told the court
that Arthur's inability to clear his friend had really been the first
cause of his illness, from which he was not expected to recover.

The jury consulted