s, Mr. Stratton?" was the question.

"Whatever time you want. I wish the thing done thoroughly and
completely, and, as you know, silence is golden in a case like this."

[Illustration: "How much time do you give me?"]

"Enough said," replied the other, and, buttoning the photograph in his
inside pocket, he left the room.

* * * * *

There is no necessity of giving an elaborate report of the trial. Any
one who has curiosity in the matter can find the full particulars from
the files of any paper in the country. Mrs. Brenton was very pale as she
sat in the prisoner's dock, but George Stratton thought he never saw any
one look so beautiful. It seemed to him that any man in that crowded
courtroom could tell in a moment that she was not guilty of the crime
with which she was charged, and he looked at the jury of twelve
supposedly good men, and wondered what they thought of it.

[Illustration: In the prisoner's dock.]

The defence claimed that it was not their place to show who committed
the murder. That rested with the prosecution. The prosecution, Mr.
Benham maintained, had signally failed to do this. However, in order to
aid the prosecution, he was quite willing to show how Mr. Brenton came
to his death. Then witnesses were called, who, to the astonishment of
Mrs. Brenton, testified that her husband had all along had a tendency to
insanity. It was proved conclusively that some of his ancestors had died
in a lunatic asylum, and one was stated to have committed suicide. The
defence produced certain books from Mr. Brenton's library, among them
Forbes Winslow's volume on "The Mind and the Brain," to show that
Brenton had studied the subject of suicide.

The judge's charge was very colourless. It amounted simply to this:
If the jury thought the prosecution had shown Mrs. Brenton to have
committed the crime, they were to bring in a verdict of guilty, and if
they thought otherwise they were to acquit her; and so the jury retired.

As they left the court-room a certain gloom fell upon all those who were
friendly to the fair prisoner.

Despite the great reputation of Benham and Brown, it was the thought
of every one present that they had made a very poor defence. The
prosecution, on the other hand, had been most ably conducted. It had
been shown that Mrs. Brenton was chiefly to profit by her husband's
death. The insurance fund alone would add seventy-five thousand dollars
to the money she wo