sider their brief conversation on
the subject as strictly private. From first to last, poor creature, she
kept her secret; just as she would have kept her secret if she had worn
false hair, or if she had been indebted to the dentist for her teeth.
And there you see her husband, in peril of his life, because a woman
acted _like_ a woman--as your wives, gentlemen of the Jury, would, in a
similar position, act toward You."

After such glorious oratory as this (I wish I had room to quote more of
it!), the next, and last, speech delivered at the Trial--that is to say,
the Charge of the Judge to the Jury--is dreary reading indeed.

His lordship first told the Jury that they could not expect to have
direct evidence of the poisoning. Such evidence hardly ever occurred in
cases of poisoning. They must be satisfied with the best circumstantial
evidence. All quite true, I dare say. But, having told the Jury they
might accept circumstantial evidence, he turned back again on his own
words, and warned them against being too ready to trust it! "You must
have evidence satisfactory and convincing to your own minds," he said,
"in which you find no conjectures--but only irresistible and just
inferences." Who is to decide what is a just inference? And what is
circumstantial evidence _but_ conjecture?

After this specimen, I need give no further extracts from the summing
up. The Jury, thoroughly bewildered no doubt, took refuge in a
compromise. They occupied an hour in considering and debating among
themselves in their own room. (A jury of women would not have taken
a minute!) Then they returned into Court, and gave their timid and
trimming Scotch Verdict in these words:

"Not Proven."

Some slight applause followed among the audience, which was instantly
checked. The prisoner was dismissed from the Bar. He slowly retired,
like a man in deep grief: his head sunk on his breast--not looking at
any one, and not replying when his friends spoke to him. He knew, poor
fellow, the slur that the Verdict left on him. "We don't say you are
innocent of the crime charged against you; we only say there is not
evidence enough to convict you." In that lame and impotent conclusion
the proceedings ended at the time. And there they would have remained
for all time--but for Me.

CHAPTER XXI. I SEE MY WAY.

IN the gray light of the new morning I closed the Report of my husband's
Trial for the Murder of his first Wife.

No sense of fatigue overpowe