,"--he began to raise his voice a
little--"here you do receive our lives into your custody; here must be
your device, either to restore them or condemn them. We have no whither
to appeal but to your consciences; we have no friends to make there but
your heeds and discretions." Then he touched briefly on the evidence,
showing how faulty and circumstantial it was, and urged them to remember
that a man's life by the very constitution of the realm must not be
sacrificed to mere probabilities or presumptions; then he showed the
untrustworthiness of his accusers, how one had confessed himself a
murderer, and how another was an atheist. Then he ended with a word or
two of appeal.

"God give you grace," he cried, "to weigh our causes aright, and have
respect to your own consciences; and so I will keep the jury no longer. I
commit the rest to God, and our convictions to your good discretions."

When the jury had retired, and all the judges but one had left the bench
until the jury should return, Anthony sat back in his place, his heart
beating and his eyes looking restlessly now on the prisoners, now on the
door where the jury had gone out, and now on Judge Ayloff, whom he knew a
little, and who sat only a few feet away from him on one side. He could
hear the lawyers sitting below the judge talking among themselves; and
presently one of them leaned over to him.

"Good-day, Mr. Norris," he said, "you have come to see an acquittal, I
doubt not. No man can be in two minds after what we have heard; at least
concerning Mr. Campion. We all think so, here, at any rate."

The lawyer was going on to say a word or two more as to the priest's
eloquence, when there was a sharp exclamation from the judge. Anthony
looked up and saw Judge Ayloff staring at his hand, turning it over while
he held his glove in the other; and Anthony saw to his surprise that the
fingers were all blood-stained. One or two gentlemen near him turned and
looked, too, as the judge, still staring and growing a little pale, wiped
the blood quickly away with the glove; but the fingers grew crimson again
immediately.

"'S'Body!" said Ayloff, half to himself; "'tis strange, there is no
wound." A moment later, looking up, he saw many of his neighbours
glancing curiously at his hand and his pale face, and hastily thrust on
his glove again; and immediately after the jury returned, and the judges
filed in to take their places. Anthony's attention was drawn off again,
and