r of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which the
prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated gaze of
an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly rose, and,
lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their stoop and his
whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely absent from it
up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and creeping chill seize
and shake me, as I have heard people say they experienced when uttering
the common expression, "Some one is walking over my grave."

It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I received
a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could neither
understand nor respond to--a message of warning, or, possibly of simple
preparation for what his coming speech might convey.

It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a better
man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he could also
withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust my fate. And so,
good-bye to self. Arthur's life and Carmel's future peace were trembling
in the balance. Surely these were worth the full attention of the man who
loved the woman, who pitied the man.

At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and but
slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his address:

"May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend of
the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as appears
from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt to explain
the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my young client by
any theory save the obvious one--the natural desire of a brother to hide
his only remaining sister's connection with a tragedy of whose details he
was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a theory derogatory to
her position as a young and well-bred woman.

"I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client's many
hesitations and suppressions--which, under other circumstances, would
militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and impartial
jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of honour in his
soul, can understand why this man--whatever his record, and however
impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity and the
wilfulness of his youth--should recoil fro