home; that I entered at
midnight the bedroom where her father slept, stupefied him with
chloroform, broke open his vault, robbed it of money, jewels and will;
and that when Gen'l Darrington awoke and attempted to rescue his
property, I deliberately killed him. You are asked to believe that I am
'the incarnate fiend' who planned and committed that horrible crime,
and, alas for me! every circumstance seems like a bloodhound to bay me.
My handkerchief was found, tainted with chloroform. It was my
handkerchief; but how it came there, on Gen'l Darrington's bed, only
God witnessed. I saw among the papers taken from the tin box and laid
on the table, a large envelope marked in red ink, 'Last Will and
Testament of Robert Luke Darrington'; but I never saw it afterward. I
was never in that room but once; and the last and only time I ever saw
General Darrington was when I passed out of the glass door, and left
him standing in the middle of the room, with the tin box in his hand.

"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