fiery and impatient youth, long fretted by the restraints of his
situation, and had conducted him to violence, robbery, and flight. It
was a case that could not be regarded without great regret and
compassion; but the gentlemen of the jury must bear in mind in their
investigation, that pity must not be permitted to distort the facts,
which he feared were only too obvious.

The speech was infinitely more telling from its fair and commiserating
tone towards the prisoner; and the impression that it carried, not that
he was to be persecuted by having the crime fastened on him, but that
truth must be sought out at all hazards.

'Even he is sorry for Leonard! I don't hate him as I thought I
should,' whispered Gertrude May, to her elder sister. The first witness
was, as before, the young maid-servant, Anne Ellis, who described her
first discovery of the body; and on farther interrogation, the
situation of the room, distant from those of the servants, and out of
hearing--also her master's ordinary condition of feebleness. She had
observed nothing in the room, or on the table, but knew the window was
open, since she had run to it, and screamed for help, upon which Master
Hardy had come to her aid.

Leonard's counsel then elicited from her how low the window was, and
how easily it could be entered from without.

James Hardy corroborated all this, giving a more minute account of the
state of the room; and telling of his going to call the young
gentlemen, and finding the open passage window and empty bed-room. The
passage window would naturally be closed at night; and there was no
reason to suppose that Mr. Ward would be absent. The bag shown to him
was one that had originally been made for the keeping of cash, but
latterly had been used for samples of grain, and he had last seen it in
the office.

The counsel for the prisoner inquired what had been on the table at
Hardy's first entrance; but to this the witness could not swear, except
that the lamp was burning, and that there were no signs of disorder,
nor was the dress of the deceased disarranged. He had seen his master
put receipts, and make memorandums, in a large, black, silver-clasped
pocket-book, but had never handled it, and could not swear to it; he
had seen nothing like it since his master's death. He was further asked
how long the prisoner had been at the mill, his duties there, and the
amount of trust reposed in him; to which last the answer was, that
about a