he argued that as there was no wound on the dead man other than
the fracture of the skull, it was plain that death had resulted from a
fall. How the deceased had come by that fall was now the question. Was
it not presumable that he had slipped his foot and had fallen? He
reminded them that Wilson was lame on one leg. If the fall were the
result of a blow, was it not preposterous to suppose that a man of
Sim's slight physique could have inflicted it? Under ordinary
circumstances, only a more powerful man than Wilson himself could have
killed him by a fall.

At this the murmur rose again among the bystanders, but it sounded to
Ralph like the murmur of beasts being robbed of their prey.

As to the tailor having been seen abroad at night, was not that the
commonest occurrence? With the evidence of Sim's landlord Ralph did
not deal.

It was plain that Sim could not be held over for trial on evidence
such as was before them. He was discharged, and an open verdict was
returned. The spectators were not satisfied, however, to receive the
tailor back again as an innocent man. Would he go upstairs and look at
the body? There was a superstition among them that a dead body would
bleed at a touch from the hand of the murderer. Sim said nothing, but
stared wildly about him.

"Come, father," said Rotha, "do as they wish."

The little man permitted himself to be led into the room above. Ralph
followed with a reluctant step. He had cleared his friend, but looked
more troubled than before. When the company reached the bedside, Ralph
stood at its head while one of the men took a cloth off the dead man's
face.

There was a stain of earth on it.

Then they drew Sim up in front of it. When his eyes fell on the white,
upturned face, he uttered a wild cry and fell senseless to the floor.
Ha! The murmur rose afresh. Then there was a dead silence. Rotha was
the first to break the awful stillness. She knelt over her father's
prostrate form, and said amid stifling sobs,--

"Tell them it is not true; tell them so, father."

The murmur came again. She understood it, and rose up with flashing
eyes.

"_I_ tell them it is not true," she said. Then stepping firmly to the
bedside, she cried, "Look you all! I, his daughter, touch here this
dead man's hand, and call on God to give a sign if my father did this
thing."

So saying, she took the hand of the murdered man, and held it
convulsively in her own.

The murmur died to a hush of suspens