ed; and this faithful young heart made the pilgrimage, and left
the offering--and in consequence thereof, missed the train that would
have carried her safely back to her mother--and to peace. On the
morning after the preliminary examination I went to the cemetery, and
found the fatal flowers just where she had placed them, on the great
marble cross that covers the tomb of 'Helena Tracey--wife of Luke
Darringtun.'

"You husbands and fathers who trust your names, your honor, the peace
of your hearts-almost the salvation of your souls--to the women you
love: staking the dearest interest of humanity, the sanctity of that
heaven on earth--your stainless homes--upon the fidelity of womanhood,
can you doubt for one instant, that the prisoner will accept death
rather than betray the man she loves? No human plummet has sounded the
depths of a woman's devotion; no surveyor's chain will ever mark the
limits of a woman's faithful, patient endurance; and only the wings of
an archangel can transcend that pinnacle to which the sublime principle
of self-sacrifice exalts a woman's soul.

"In a quaint old city on the banks of the Pegnitz, history records an
instance of feminine self-abnegation, more enduring than monuments of
brass. The law had decreed a certain provision for the maintenance of
orphans; and two women in dire distress, seeing no possible avenue of
help, accused themselves falsely of a capital crime, and were executed;
thereby securing a support for the children they orphaned.

"As a tireless and vigilant prosecutor of the real criminal, the
Cain-branded man now wandering in some western wild, I charge the
prisoner with only one sin, suicidal silence; and I commend her to your
must tender compassion, believing that in every detail and minutiae she
has spoken the truth; and that she is as innocent of the charge in the
indictment as you or I. Remember that you have only presumptive proof
to guide you in this solemn deliberation, and in the absence of direct
proof, do not be deluded by a glittering sophistry, which will soon
attempt to persuade you, that: 'A presumption which necessarily arises
from circumstances,--is very often more convincing and more
satisfactory than any other kind of evidence; it is not within the
reach and compass of human abilities to invent a train of
circumstances, which shall be so connected together as to amount to a
proof of guilt, without affording opportunities of contradicting a
great part,