mistake in his last question, and that the answer
of the witness was an answer which told very
strongly in favour of the defence. It is
probable that Mr. Pry felt this to be the case
himself. At all events, he did not ask any more
questions, and intimated to Mr. Lethwaite that
he might leave the box, a permission of which
that gentleman was not slow to avail himself.
He had done what he could to serve his friend.
His examination was followed by that of
Jonathan Goodrich, who simply corroborated in all
points the evidence as to the finding of the
laudanum bottle which had just been given by
the last witness. He was not cross-examined, and,
upon his retirement from the witness-box, Gilbert
Penmore rose once more and announced that—

The defence was now complete.

The prosecution and the defence had each of
them now put the facts of the case, as they bore
in favour of each, before the jury. The
evidence on which the great decision was to rest
had all been given. According to time-honoured
custom, it was now the privilege of the prosecutor
to make a sort of answer to the arguments
put forward by the defence. This, no doubt, is
only fair. The prosecution, having to open the
case, cannot know at the beginning what line
the counsel for the defence will take, and this
might give the last, if left with the last word,
an undue advantage. Also, supposing him to
have put forward any unsound statement likely
to exercise undue influence with the jury, here
is an opportunity for the prosecutor to expose
it, and to counteract such statement by his own
arguments. The reply of the prosecution is
seldom a long one. It is one of the final stages
of a trial, and is a signal to all men that the
end is approaching.

It was small wonder that at this time the
long and painful suspense endured by Gabrielle
Penmore should have begun to tell upon her.
Her strength was fairly undermined. That old
judge, who had had so much sad experience of
such scenes as these, had not failed to observe
a strange sort of restlessness which had come
over her. The fatigue which she had undergone
had quite gone beyond her powers of
endurance, and at times she seemed to waver on
her seat, as if she would fall. The old man
whispered something to an attendant, and the
proceedings were suspended, while the prisoner
was removed for a time into the open air, and
strengthened for what was yet to come with
restoratives. It was noticed by many how the
young advocate for the defence, in his place
among the barristers' benches, was suffering
also at this time, and what frequent disturbed
glances he directed at this bitter moment
towards the dock behind him.

The witnesses who had been called for the
defence had changed the aspect of the case
before the jury in a manner which no one had
anticipated, and the prosecution had, as we have
seen already, sought to shake the testimony of
those witnesses in cross-examination, or, failing
that, to make them out untrustworthy, fanciful—
such persons, in short, as were not to be relied
on as witnesses. This was the line of argument
adhered to now by Serjeant Probyn in his reply
on the evidence for the defence. He would go
through that evidence, he said, carefully, from
beginning to end; but first he had something to
say in connexion with the circumstances under
which that defence had been presented before
the jury, to which he begged their earnest
attention. The case which this jury had
assembled to try was one which had excited a vast
deal of sympathetic feeling. Great interest had
been awakened in the public mind by the fact
that the prisoner placed at the bar, with the
most serious charge known in law against her,
belonged to a class of life the members of which
rarely appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey.
The prisoner not only did not belong to the
criminal classes, but was a lady of good and
most respectable connexions, and was in every
way calculated to awaken that feeling of interest
and sympathy which, beyond a doubt, had been
extended towards her by a great number of
people. As if, too, to increase the strong feeling
of popular excitement with which this trial
had been regarded by the world outside, there
was an additional element of interest imported
into it of which it was the duty of the counsel
for the prosecution to say something. He
alluded to the close connexion which existed
between the prisoner at the bar and the counsel
who had undertaken to conduct her defence.
The existence of that relationship was no secret,
and he believed the knowledge of it had strengthened
very much the desire that the defence
might win the day, if he might so speak, which
the learned serjeant believed had possession of
most persons who were present in court that
day. He entreated the jury to put all such
considerations away from their minds, and to
regard, in coming to their decision, the interests
of justice, and of justice only. The evidence
which had been put before them was what they
had to do with, and that alone. The evidence
and the degree of confidence with which that
evidence was to be regarded; and here there did
appear to be some ground for hesitation. A
great question remained to be decided on by the
jury. How far were those witnesses, who had
given such remarkable testimony in favour of
the line of defence adopted by his learned friend,
worthy of trust and belief? The principal
witness, on whose evidence, indeed, the whole
defence rested—did it appear to the jury that
this was a man on whom, in a question of such
importance as the present one, implicit reliance
could be placed? He was a wild, visionary
character. He was professedly an astrologer
and fortune-teller, one who believed in, and
practised, what were called the occult arts.
What such a person spoke of as facts might be in
reality nothing but dreams, the fancies of an
imagination disordered by long and wilful indulgence.

This was the line adopted by the learned
serjeant. He went through all the evidence
that had been given, and tried to weaken its
effect by depreciating those who had given it.
What sort of witness, he would ask, was a