ns of epilepsy in Lady Penreath's son--the
prisoner at the bar?" asked Sir Herbert, who began to divine the
direction of the defence.

"Never," replied the witness.

"Was he under your care in his infancy and boyhood? I mean were you
called in to attend to his youthful ailments?"

"Yes, until he went to school."

"And was he a normal and healthy boy?"

"Quite."

"Did you see him when he returned home recently?" asked Mr. Middleheath,
rising to re-examine.

"Yes."

"You are aware he was discharged from the Army suffering from
shell-shock?"

"Yes."

"And did you notice a marked change in him?"

"Very marked indeed. He struck me as odd and forgetful at times, and
sometimes he seemed momentarily to lose touch with his surroundings. He
used to be very bright and good-tempered, but he returned from the war
irritable and moody, and very silent, disliking, above all things, to be
questioned about his experiences at the front. He used to be the very
soul of courtesy, but when he returned from the front he refused to
attend a 'welcome home' at the village church and hear the vicar read a
congratulatory address."

"I hope you are not going to advance the latter incident as a proof of
_non compos mentis_, Mr. Middleheath," said the judge facetiously.

In the ripples of mirth which this judicial sally aroused, the little
doctor was permitted to leave the box, and depart for his native
obscurity of Twelvetrees. He had served his purpose, so far as Mr.
Middleheath was concerned, and Sir Herbert Templewood was too good a
sportsman to waste skilful flies on such a small fish, which would do no
honour to his bag if hooked.

Sir Herbert Templewood and every lawyer in court were by now aware that
the defence were unable to meet the Crown case, but were going to fight
for a verdict of insanity. The legal fraternity realised the
difficulties of that defence in a case of murder. It would be necessary
not only to convince the jury that the accused did not know the
difference between right and wrong, but to convince the judge, in the
finer legal interpretation of criminal insanity, that the accused did
not know the nature of the act he was charged with committing, in the
sense that he was unable to distinguish whether it was right or wrong at
the moment of committing it. The law, which assumes that a man is sane
and responsible for his acts, throws upon the defence the onus of
proving otherwise, and proving it up to the hilt