ns,
but, and here is another cause for wonderment, Doctor Benoit is not
present; and, who ever knew the good doctor to miss an occasion like
this?

"Business must be urgent, when it keeps Benoit away from such a trial,"
whispers one gossip to another, and the second endorses the opinion of
the first.

Sitting there, scanning that audience with a seemingly careless glance,
Constance feels her heart sink like lead in her bosom.

She feels, she knows, that already in the minds of most, her lover is a
condemned man. She knows that the weight of evidence will be against
him. They have a defense, it is true, but nothing will overthrow the
fact that John Burrill went straight to the house of the prisoner, and
was found dead hard by.

All along she has hoped, she knew not what, from Bathurst. But since he
returned Sybil's note in so strange and abrupt a manner, she has had no
word or sign from him, and now she doubts him, she distrusts everything.

But, little by little, day by day, she has been schooling her heart to
face one last desperate alternative. Her lover _shall_ be saved! Let the
trial go on. Let the worst come. Let the fatal verdict be pronounced, if
it must; after that, perish the Wardour honor. What if she must trample
the heart out of a mother's breast? What if she must fling into the
breach the life of a blighted, wronged, helpless, perhaps dying sister
woman?

Hardening her heart, crushing down her pride, she muttered desperately
on this last day of doubt and suspense.

"Let them all go. Let the verdict be what it may, Clifford Heath shall
not suffer a felon's doom!"

Then she had nerved herself to calmness and gone to face the inevitable.

"Prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?"

[Illustration: "Prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?"]

The reading of the indictment has turned all eyes upon the prisoner's
face.

He stands erect, his head haughtily poised, his clear dark eyes fixed
fully upon the judge.

"I am not guilty, your honor."

A murmur runs through the court room. The stranger bends to whisper to
Constance. The trial proceeds.

Once again all the evidence brought forward at the inquest is
repeated--sworn to--dilated upon. Once again it presses the scales
down, down, down, and the chances for the prisoner hang light in the
balance.

One thing puzzles the prosecuting attorney, and troubles the mind of
Jasper Lamotte.

O'Meara, the shrewd, the fox like--O'Me