y forfeited for thoughts of crime! I speak that, when in after
years my innocence will be made evident by the discovery of the real
assassin, you will all remember what I now say--that I have not so
basely requited the King and Country who so generously and trustingly
befriended me--that I am no murderer!"

"Then, if so convinced of innocence, young man, wherefore not attempt
defence?" demanded the Sub-Prior of St. Francis. "Knowest thou not
that wilfully to throw away the life intrusted to you, for some
wise purpose, is amenable before the throne of the Most High as
self-committed murder? Proofs of this strongly asserted innocence,
thou must have."

"I have none," calmly answered the prisoner, "I have but words, and
who will believe them? Who, here present, will credit the strange
tale, that, tortured and restless from mental suffering, I courted the
fury of the elements, and rushed from my quarters on the night of the
murder _without_ my sword?--that, in securing the belt, I missed the
weapon, but still sought not for it as I ought?--who will believe that
it was accident, not design, which took me to the Calle Soledad? and
that it was a fall over the murdered body of Don Ferdinand which
deluged my hands and dress with the blood that dyed the ground? Who
will credit that it was seeing him thus which chained me, paralyzed,
horror-stricken, to the spot? In the wild fury of my passions I had
believed him my enemy, and sworn his death; then was it marvel that
thus beholding him turned me well-nigh to stone, and that, in my
horror, I had no power to call for aid, or raise the shout after the
murderer, for my own thoughts arose as fiends, to whisper, such might
have been nay work--that I had wished his death? Great God! the awful
wakening from the delusion of weeks--the dread recognition in that
murdered corse of my own thoughts of sin!" He paused involuntarily,
for his strong agitation completely choked his voice, and shook his
whole frame. After a brief silence, which none in the hall had heart
to break, he continued calmly, "Let the trial proceed, gracious
Sovereign. Your Highness's generous interest in one accused of a
crime so awful, comprising the death, not of a subject only, but of a
friend, does but add to the heavy weight of obligation already mine,
and would of itself excite the wish to live, to prove that I am not
so utterly unworthy; but I feel that not to such as I, may the Divine
mercy be so shown, as to bri