no recompense when the accused is proven to have been innocent. This
is one of the anomalies of a system which claims to administer equal
rights and justice to all. I am accused of a crime. I am arrested and
incarcerated for weeks, or months. I am tried and acquitted. I spend
thousands of dollars in my defence. When I am released, I am in no way
repaid for my loss of liberty and money. Indeed, innocent though I be,
I am congratulated by a host of sympathizers because I was not hanged.
But I have had full justice. I have been accorded an expensive trial,
with learned talent against me, etc., etc. The law is not to blame,
nor those who enforce the laws. I am the victim of circumstances, that
is all. Well, so be it. A stupid doctor has warned the authorities
that a woman has died of morphine poisoning, despite the fact that a
more competent man has signed a certificate that she died of a natural
disease. So I have been accused, and will undoubtedly be indicted and
tried. But do you not see, that I have but to show that diphtheria
caused death, and my innocence will be admitted?"

"Yes, but----!"

"No! There is no but? Now show me to a room, where I may rest
unobserved, until the day after to-morrow. We must not rob the public
of its sensation too soon. Think of it, I read my own holocaust in an
afternoon paper!"

Madam Corona shivered at this, not yet fully unmindful of her own
recent forebodings. Obediently she took him to a room, and left him,
the single comforting thought abiding with her, that she would have
him all to herself during the whole of the following day.

When Messrs. Dudley and Bliss learned from Barnes that he had followed
Dr. Medjora, and had seen him go into the building which had been
destroyed by fire, their hope that possibly the newspaper accounts
were erroneous, was dissipated.

"I knew it!" began the junior member. "I knew that it was too good to
be true. Think of that man's permitting himself to be burned to death
just as we were about to get our chance. It's too exasperating."

"It is annoying, Robert, of course," said Mr. Dudley. "Yet there is
some comfort in the thought that he had the courtesy to pay us a
retainer. That five hundred is most acceptable."

"Oh! certainly, the money will come handy, but what is five hundred
dollars to an opportunity such as this would have been?" Mr. Bliss was
in a very bad humor.

"Robert," began his partner, speaking seriously, "you must not be so
im