it at the time. Why didn't they say that she was going towards the
tennis-ground, or the Grand Hotel, or the bathing-place? All those lay
in the same direction, and there is not a tittle of evidence to show,
there is not the smallest reason to suppose, that she ever went a yard
beyond those places.

'That is how the prosecution has been conducted throughout. That
wicked servant, who practically admitted that she nursed a dislike to
her young mistress, got into that box, I put it to you, for the
deliberate purpose of making the case against her as black as she
could. In reality her evidence was strongly in the prisoner's favour,
as I shall point out to you. But she, too, was instructed, or was
taught by her own evil nature, to so distort the facts as to make them
bear an appearance against the unhappy girl who is on trial for her
life.

'First, we have the incident of the groan. On that subject I ask you
to accept her first story, that it was a mere troubled exclamation
in sleep, if it was really heard at all, which I may be permitted to
doubt. For when a witness exhibits such recklessness and malice and
wilful perversion of the truth in a case of this solemn character, I
cannot willingly believe that any jury of Englishmen will consent to
take away a human life on such testimony.

'Then we come to the incident of prisoner's going out. Good heavens!
what colouring is put into a simple incident like that! The prisoner,
as we now know, and as this wretched woman doubtless knew perfectly
well, often went out at night. She suffered from some nervous attack,
accompanied by insomnia, and the chemist, Mr. James, whom the
counsel on the other side, with all his bitterness, dared not
cross-examine--Mr. James told you that he had himself advised her
to take these walks at night. Do you believe him? Do you think a
respectable tradesman--I may almost call him a professional man--would
come into the box and perjure himself on such a subject? Hardly. It
would be too much to expect. I do not think that even my learned
friend will ask you to say that Mr. James has committed perjury,
though I have no doubt at all that Lewis would like to have it
suggested.'

There was an intense bitterness in the way in which he brought out
Lewis's name. Unconsciously the jury began to be influenced by it,
and to look at Lewis each time he was referred to with undisguised
aversion.

'Yet how this simple incident is magnified and invested with
im