wn despite, I
caught the sweet and elevated look with which she laid her hand on the
Book, and asked myself if her presence here was not a self-accusation,
which would bring satisfaction to nobody--which would sink her and hers
into an ignominy worse than the conviction of the brother whom she was
supposedly there to save.

Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.

The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
could be heard:

"Your name, if you please."

"Carmel Cumberland."

"Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?"

"Yes; he is my brother."

A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked upon
with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern innocence,
where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to discover guilt.

"Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister's death?"

"I was in the club-house--in the house you call The Whispering Pines."

At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself and
the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked every
countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night--she who had
been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and unconscious! It
was not to be believed--or it would not have been, if Arthur with less
self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not shown by his morose
air and the silent drooping of his head that he accepted this statement,
wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox, whose mind without doubt had
been engaged in a debate from the first, as to the desirability of
challenging the testimony of this young girl, whose faculties had so
lately recovered from a condition of great shock and avowed forgetfulness
that no word as yet had come to him of her restored health, started to
arise at her words; but noting the prisoner's attitude, he hastily
reseated himself, realising, perhaps, that evidence of which he had never
dreamed lay at the bottom of the client's manner and the counsel's
complacency. If so, then his own air of mingled disbelief and
compassionate forbearance might strike the jury unfavourably; while, on
the