amily had been fully made out, that the coincidence of visits to
the castle at that untimely hour had been insufficiently explained,
that the condition of the remains in the vault was quite
inconsistent with the evidence of the witness, Mistress Woodford,
unless there were persons waiting below unknown to her, and that the
prisoner had been absent from Fareham from four or five o'clock in
the morning till nearly three in the afternoon. As to the strange
story she had further told, he (Mr. Cowper) was neither
superstitious nor philosophic, but the jury would decide whether
conscience and the sense of an awful secret were not sufficient to
conjure up such phantoms, if they were not indeed spiritual,
occurring as they did in the very places and at the very times when
the spirit of the unhappy young man, thus summarily dismissed from
the world, his corpse left in an unblessed den, would be most likely
to reappear, haunting those who felt themselves to be most
accountable for his lamentable and untimely end.

The words evidently told, and it was at a disadvantage that the
prisoner rose to speak in his own defence and to call his witnesses.

"My lord," he said, "and gentlemen of the jury, let me first say
that I am deeply grieved and hurt that the name of my poor young
wife has been brought into this matter. In justice to her who is
gone, I must begin by saying that though she was flattered and
gratified by the polite manners that I was too clownish and awkward
to emulate, and though I may have sometimes manifested ill-humour,
yet I never for a moment took serious offence nor felt bound to
defend her honour or my own. If I showed displeasure it was because
she was fatiguing herself against warning. I can say with perfect
truth, that when I left home on that unhappy morning, I bore no
serious ill-will to any living creature. I had no political
purpose, and never dreamt of taking the life of any one. I was a
heedless youth of nineteen. I shall be able to prove the commission
of my wife's on which this learned gentleman has thought fit to cast
a doubt. For the rest, Mistress Anne Woodford was my sister's
friend and playfellow from early childhood. When I entered the
castle court I saw her hurrying into the keep, pursued by Oakshott,
whom I knew her to dread and dislike. I naturally stepped between.
Angry words passed. He challenged my right to interfere, and in a
passion drew upon me. Though I was the taller and st