e
of hundred remaining in a state of vague expectation. Westminster
Hall itself continued to be moderately full, a compact section of
the crowd that had secured places of vantage between the barricade
and the temporary telegraph station evidently being prepared to see
it out at whatever hour the end might come.

For the next hour there was scarcely any movement in the Hall, save
that occasioned by persons who lounged in, looked round, and either
ranged themselves in the ranks behind the policemen, or strolled
out again, holding to the generally prevalent belief that if they
returned at two o'clock they would still have sufficient hours to
wait. In the Yard a thin line extended from the side of the Hall
gateway backwards to the railings in St. Margaret's Street, with
another line drawn up across the far edge of the broad carriage-way
before the entrance. There was no ostentatious show of police, but
they had a way of silently filing out from under the sheds or out
of the Commons' gateway in proportion as the crowd thickened, which
conveyed the impression that there was a force somewhere about that
would prove sufficient to meet any emergency. As a matter of fact,
Mr. Superintendent Denning had under his command three hundred men,
who had marched down to Westminster Hall at six o'clock in the
morning, and were chiefly disposed in reserve, ready for action as
circumstances might dictate.

At half-past eleven, there being not more than three or four hundred
people in Palace Yard, a number of Press messengers, rushing
helter-skelter out of the court and into waiting cabs, indicated the
arrival of some critical juncture within the jealously guarded
portals. Presently it was whispered that the Lord Chief Justice had
finished his summing up, and that Mr. Justice Mellor was addressing
the jury. A buzz of conversation rose and fell in the Hall, and the
ranks drew closer up, waiting in silence the consummation that could
not now be far distant.

The news spread with surprising swiftness, not only in Palace Yard,
but throughout Bridge Street and St. Margaret's Street, and the
railings looking thence into the yard became gradually banked with
rows of earnest faces. Little groups formed on the pavement about
the corners of Parliament Street. Faces appeared at the windows of
the houses overlooking the Yard, and the whole locality assumed an
aspect of grave and anxious expectation. A few minutes after the
clock in the tower had sl