n these circumstances, what alternatives were left to her?
She could either go on living with this drunkard, in terror of her
life; or she could apply to the Court for a separation order. Well,
gentlemen, my experience of such cases assures me that this would
have given her very insufficient protection from the violence of such
a man; and even if effectual would very likely have reduced her
either to the workhouse or the streets--for it's not easy, as she is
now finding, for an unskilled woman without means of livelihood to
support herself and her children without resorting either to the Poor
Law or--to speak quite plainly--to the sale of her body.

JUDGE. You are ranging rather far, Mr. Frome.

FROME. I shall fire point-blank in a minute, my lord.

JUDGE. Let us hope so.

FROME. Now, gentlemen, mark--and this is what I have been leading up
to--this woman will tell you, and the prisoner will confirm her,
that, confronted with such alternatives, she set her whole hopes on
himself, knowing the feeling with which she had inspired him. She
saw a way out of her misery by going with him to a new country, where
they would both be unknown, and might pass as husband and wife. This
was a desperate and, as my friend Mr. Cleaver will no doubt call it,
an immoral resolution; but, as a fact, the minds of both of them were
constantly turned towards it. One wrong is no excuse for another,
and those who are never likely to be faced by such a situation
possibly have the right to hold up their hands--as to that I prefer
to say nothing. But whatever view you take, gentlemen, of this part
of the prisoner's story--whatever opinion you form of the right of
these two young people under such circumstances to take the law into
their own hands--the fact remains that this young woman in her
distress, and this young man, little more than a boy, who was so
devotedly attached to her, did conceive this--if you like--
reprehensible design of going away together. Now, for that, of
course, they required money, and--they had none. As to the actual
events of the morning of July 7th, on which this cheque was altered,
the events on which I rely to prove the defendant's irresponsibility
--I shall allow those events to speak for themselves, through the
lips of my witness. Robert Cokeson. [He turns, looks round, takes
up a sheet of paper, and waits.]

COKESON is summoned into court, and goes into the witness-box,
holding his hat bef