hese. Where a murder is proven, you can commit a subject
of this realm upon suspicion. But you cannot suspect the murder as well
as the culprit, and so commit. The murder must be proved to the senses.
Now in this case, the death of Mr. Gaunt by violence is not proved.
Indeed, his very death rests but upon suspicion. I admit that the law of
England in this respect has once or twice been tampered with, and
persons have even been executed where no _corpus delicti_ was found; but
what was the consequence? In each case the murdered man turned out to be
alive, and justice was the only murderer. After Harrison's case, and
----'s, no Cumberland jury will ever commit for murder, unless the
_corpus delicti_ has been found, and with signs of violence upon it.
Come, come, Mr. Atkins, you are too good a lawyer, and too humane a man,
to send my client to prison on the suspicion of a suspicion, which you
know the very breath of the judge will blow away, even if the grand jury
let it go into court. I offer bail, ten thousand pounds in two sureties;
Sir George Neville here present, and myself."

The magistrate looked to Mr. Atkins.

"I am not employed by the crown," said that gentleman, "but acting on
mere civil grounds, and have no right nor wish to be severe. Bail by all
means: but is the lady so sure of her innocence as to lend me her
assistance to find the _corpus delicti_?"

The question was so shrewdly put, that any hesitation would have ruined
Mrs. Gaunt.

Houseman, therefore, replied eagerly and promptly, "I answer for her,
she will."

Mrs. Gaunt bowed her head in assent.

"Then," said Atkins, "I ask leave to drag, and, if need be, to drain
that piece of water there, called 'the mere.'"

"Drag it or drain it, which you will," said Houseman.

Said Atkins, very impressively, "And, mark my words, at the bottom of
that very sheet of water there, I shall find the remains of the late
Griffith Gaunt."

* * * * *

At these solemn words, coming as they did, not from a loose
unprofessional speaker, but from a lawyer, a man who measured all his
words, a very keen observer might have seen a sort of tremor run all
through Mr. Houseman's frame. The more admirable, I think, was the
perfect coolness and seeming indifference with which he replied, "Find
him, and I'll admit suicide; find him, with signs of violence, and I'll
admit homicide--by some person or persons unknown."

All further remarks were