Miss Silver On Oath

The day of trial came. Long, miserable weeks of waiting--weeks of anguish and remorse and despair had gone before, and Sir Everard Kingsland emerged from his cell to take his place in the criminal dock and be tried for his life for the greatest crime man can commit.

The court-house was crowded to suffocation--there was not even standing room. The long gallery was one living semicircle of eyes; ladies, in gleaming silks and fluttering plumes, thronged as to the opera, and slender throats were craned, and bright eyes glanced eagerly to catch one fleeting glimpse of the pale prisoner--a baronet who had murdered his bride before the honey-moon was well over.

The case was opened in a long and eloquent speech by the counsel for the crown, setting forth the enormity of the crime, citing a hundred incidents of the horrible and unnatural deeds jealousy had made men commit, from the days of the first murderer.

His address was listened to in profoundest silence. The charge he made out was a terribly strong one, and when he sat down and the first witness was called the hearts of Sir Everard Kingsland's friends sunk like lead.

He pleaded "Not guilty!" with an eye that flashed and a voice which rang, and a look in his pale, proud face that no murderer's face ever wore on this earth, and with those two words he had carried conviction to many a doubter.