se. But not a bit of it.
Up and down he denied that he was the culprit.

A denial such as that has, though, its merits. It puts on the
prosecution the burden of proof. Moreover, if you have done anything
you should not have it is only common sense to say that you have not
done it, to say it in spite of facts, in spite of evidence, in spite
of everything and everybody. For if you own up, there you are, while
if you don't then no matter what is advanced you may succeed in
raising a doubt and in planting it among the jury. But in this case
the denial was more serviceable than ordinarily it might have been for
the reason that thus far no one had been produced who could say they
had been about while Annandale was at it.

These points Orr set before Sylvia. The sophistry of them displeased
her. She did not like it, and said so.

"It will get him off, though," Orr confidently replied. "Unless," he
hastened to add, "a witness to the act itself should pop up. Then,
barring a miracle, he is a goner. But otherwise I will get him off. It
may take a year or two, but I'll do it."

"I don't want you to get him off," Sylvia scornfully retorted. "I want
him vindicated."

"You see, though," Orr with unruffleable calm continued, "if a witness
should pop up, a witness, let us say, whom I cannot discredit,
vindication will be difficult. It will be difficult to make twelve
imbeciles in a pen believe that when Annandale shot Loftus----"

"He never shot him," Sylvia cried.

"My dear cousin," Orr with the same unruffleable calm pursued, "the
beauty of your faith is wonderful. You must come to court and inject
it among the jury. Faith that used to move mountains may yet move men.
But I doubt it. I doubt that it could make them credit the incredible,
the fact patent to me as it should be to you, that though Annandale
shot Loftus he was, and for that matter still is, totally unconscious
of it."

"He never shot him."

"My dear Sylvia, forgive me. He did. Though what I can say for him
and, if needful, I shall say, is that he did not mean to. The intent
is the essence of crime. There was no intent here. Of his own free
will the man would not hurt a fly. But that night he was not a free
agent. He was not even a conscious agent. Of all the cells of his
brain but one was awake. In that cell was an incitement inciting him
to kill. When the other cells awoke that one cell fell asleep. It has
been dormant since then. Only through hypnosis could