standing the fatigues of
the day's journey, (for he had ridden some distance,) he let
himself out by the window, and reached the ground safely,
though it was a height of fourteen feet,--a leap, gentlemen,
that few of us would venture to take. But what will not men
risk when destruction is at their heels? He did not wait even
to saddle his horse, but fled on foot. Unhappy man, he fled
from danger, and met his death.

"From the hour when he went up to bed, none of the inmates of
the house ever saw Griffith Gaunt alive; but one Thomas Hayes,
a laborer, saw him walking in a certain direction at one
o'clock that morning; and behind him, gentlemen, there walked
another man.

"Who was that other man?

"When I have told you (and this is an essential feature of the
case) how the prisoner was employed during the time that her
husband lay quaking in his little room, waiting an opportunity
to escape,--when I have told you this, I fear you will divine
who it was that followed the deceased, and for what purpose.

"Gentlemen, when the prisoner had threatened her husband in
person, as I have described, she retired to her own room, but
not to sleep. She ordered her maid, Mrs. Ryder, to bring Thomas
Leicester to her chamber. Yes, gentlemen, she received this
pedler, at midnight, in her bedchamber.

"Now, an act so strange as this admits, I think, but of two
interpretations. Either she had a guilty amour with this
fellow, or she had some extraordinary need of his services. Her
whole character, by consent of the witnesses, renders it very
improbable that she would descend to a low amour. Moreover, she
acted too publicly in the matter. The man, as we know, was her
tool, her creature: she had bought his wares for him, and set
him up as a pedler. She openly summoned him to her presence,
and kept him there about half an hour.

"He went from her, and very soon after is seen, by Thomas
Hayes, following Griffith Gaunt, at one o'clock in the
morning,--that Griffith Gaunt who after that hour was never
seen alive.

"Gentlemen, up to this point, the evidence is clear, connected,
and cogent; but it rarely happens in cases of murder that any
human eye sees the very blow struck. The penalty is too severe
for such an act to be done in the presence