their examination had been a hurried one; and that it was just
possible that the bones might yet prove to be the remains of an animal,
and not of a man. The presiding magistrate decided upon this that a
second examination should be made, and that the member of the medical
experts should be increased.

Here the preliminary proceedings ended. The prisoners were remanded for
three days.

The prostration of Silas, at the close of the inquiry, was so complete,
that it was found necessary to have two men to support him on his
leaving the court. Ambrose leaned over the bar to speak to Naomi before
he followed the jailer out. "Wait," he whispered, confidently, "till
they hear what I have to say!" Naomi kissed her hand to him
affectionately, and turned to me with the bright tears in her eyes.

"Why don't they hear what he has to say at once?" she asked. "Anybody
can see that Ambrose is innocent. It's a crying shame, sir, to send him
back to prison. Don't you think so yourself?"

If I had confessed what I really thought, I should have said that
Ambrose had proved nothing to my mind, except that he possessed rare
powers of self-control. It was impossible to acknowledge this to my
little friend. I diverted her mind from the question of her lover's
innocence by proposing that we should get the necessary order, and
visit him in his prison on the next day. Naomi dried her tears, and
gave me a little grateful squeeze of the hand.

"Oh my! what a good fellow you are!" cried the outspoken American girl.
"When your time comes to be married, sir, I guess the woman won't
repent saying yes to _you!_"

Mr. Meadowcroft preserved unbroken silence as we walked back to the
farm on either side of his invalid-chair. His last reserves of
resolution seemed to have given way under the overwhelming strain laid
on them by the proceedings in court. His daughter, in stern indulgence
to Naomi, mercifully permitted her opinion to glimmer on us only
through the medium of quotation from Scripture texts. If the texts
meant anything, they meant that she had foreseen all that had happened;
and that the one sad aspect of the case, to her mind, was the death of
John Jago, unprepared to meet his end.

I obtained the order of admission to the prison the next morning.

We found Ambrose still confident of the favorable result, for his
brother and for himself, of the inquiry before the magistrate. He
seemed to be almost as eager to tell, as Naomi was to hear,