me did the telegram come?"

"Between five and six last evening, miss."

She returned to the hotel. Fate seemed to be against her. Baffled at the
very threshold! At the hotel she found Arthur Wardlaw's card and a
beautiful bouquet.

She sat down directly, and wrote to him affectionately, and asked him in
the postscript if he could send her a report of the trial. She received a
reply directly, that he had inquired in the office, for one of the clerks
had reports of it; but this clerk was unfortunately out, and had locked
up his desk.

Helen sighed. Her feet seemed to be clogged at every step in this
inquiry.

Next morning, however, a large envelope came for her, and a Mr. Hand
wrote to her thus:

"MADAM--Having been requested by Mr. Arthur Wardlaw to send you my
extracts of a trial, the Queen _v._ Penfold, I herewith forward the same,
and would feel obliged by your returning them at your convenience.

"Your obedient servant,

"JAMES HAND."

Helen took the inclosed extracts to her bedroom, and there read them both
over many times.

In both these reports the case for the Crown was neat, clear, cogent,
straight-forward, and supported by evidence. The defense was chiefly
argument of counsel to prove the improbability of a clergyman and a man
of good character passing a forged note. One of the reports stated that
Mr. Arthur Wardlaw, a son of the principal witness, had taken the
accusation so much to heart that he was now dangerously ill at Oxford.
The other report did not contain this, but, on the other hand, it stated
that the prisoner, after conviction, had endeavored to lay the blame on
Mr. Arthur Wardlaw, but that the judge had stopped him, and said he could
only aggravate his offense by endeavoring to cast a slur upon the
Wardlaws, who had both shown a manifest desire to shield him, but were
powerless for want of evidence.

In both reports the summing up of the judge was moderate in expression,
but leaned against the prisoner on every point, and corrected the
sophistical reasoning of his counsel very sensibly. Both reports said an
expert was called for the prisoner, whose ingenuity made the court smile,
but did not counterbalance the evidence. Helen sat cold as ice with the
extracts in her hand.

Not that her sublime faith was shaken, but that poor Robert appeared to
have been so calmly and fairly dealt with by everybody. Even Mr.
Hennessy, the counsel for the Crown, had opened the case with humane
re