testably brought home to him--it only remained for him (Mr.
Smoothbore) to notice what had been said with respect to motive. If the
prisoner at the bar had even had the intention, which had been so
gratuitously imputed to him, of returning this money to the prosecutor,
when once the object of his supposed scheme had been effected, he would
be no less guilty of the crime that was laid to his charge. It was
possible, indeed, in such a case, that there might be extenuating
circumstances, but those would not affect the verdict of the jury,
however they might influence his lordship's sentence after that verdict
had been truly given. And this he would say, after what had just
occurred in that court--after the painful scene they had just
witnessed--the breaking down of that innocent girl in an act of
self-sacrifice, culpable in itself, but infinitely more culpable in him
who had incited her to do it--for he could not for an instant suppose
that the prisoner's legal advisers could have suggested such a line of
defense: taking all this into consideration, he, Mr. Smoothbore, would
confidently ask the jury whether the prisoner at the bar was to be
credited with merely a romantic stratagem, or with a crime the
heinousness of which was only exceeded by the means by which he had
striven to exculpate himself from it, and to evade the ends of justice.

When Mr. Smoothbore had thus concluded a lengthened and impassioned
harangue, he sat down, wiping his hands upon his handkerchief, as though
implying that he had washed them of the prisoner for good and all, and
that a very dirty job it had been; while the judge rose and left the
court, it being the hour appointed to his system, by nature, for the
reception of lunch.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE SENTENCE.

Richard remained in the dock. The warder who had charge of him gave him
the option of retiring, but he preferred to stay where he was till all
was over. He had at last caught sight of his mother, straining her
loving eyes toward him--with still some hope in them--from a distant
corner of the gallery; and he kept his gaze fixed upon that spot. They
had all the world against them now, these two, so clever, and yet so
wholly unable to combat with inexorable fate. Harry's evidence, and
especially the manner of it, had not needed Mr. Smoothbore's fiery scorn
to turn all hearts against the accused. To the great mass of spectators
it seemed as though Richard would have made the girl chang