rug. Who should presume to
doubt its administration by the Prisoner, when the label bore directions
in his own characteristic handwriting? Who should dare to affirm his
innocence, seeing that to him his victim had hastened, almost in the act
of death, begging him, with her expiring breath, "not to be hard on a
woman," who had ignorantly trusted him, Gentlemen of the Jury! only to
find, too late, the deceptive nature of his specious promises? A whip,
cried the Bard of Avon, England's glorious, immortal Shakespeare, should
be placed in every honest hand to lash such scoundrels naked through the
world! Let that whip, in the honest hands of twelve good Britons, be--the
verdict of guilt! The Counsel for the Crown, red-hot and perspiring, sat
down mopping his streaming face, for it was tropical weather, with the
white handkerchief of a blameless life. Irrepressible applause followed,
round upon round thudding against the dingy yellow-white walls, beating
against the dirty barred skylight of the stifling, close-packed Court.
Then the Judge interposed, and the clapping of hands and thumping of stick
and sunshade ferrules upon the dirty floor died down, and the Counsel for
the Defence got up to plead for his man, who, by the way, he firmly
believed to be guilty.

That remembrance made the Dop Doctor merry again, this scorching night in
Gueldersdorp, five years later. But it was ugly mirth, especially when he
recalled his agony of sympathy upon hearing, through her mother, that
Mildred was ill in bed. Ah! how he hated the simpering, whispering,
sneering, giggling women in Court when he pictured her, his innocent
darling, his sweet girl, suffering for love of him and sorrow for him.
David, detained by onerous duties at Regimental Headquarters throughout
the whole of the Case, wrote chilly but fraternally expressed letters on
blue official paper. Of his mother, of his father, Owen dared not think.
Innocent as he was, the shame of his position, the obloquy of the Trial,
must be a branding shame to them for ever.

It had killed them, the Dop Doctor remembered, within a few years of each
other--the hale old Squire and Madam, his Welsh wife, feared by the South
Dorset village folks for her caustic tongue, beloved for her generous
heart, her liberal nature. It was Mildred who he had believed would die if
the Verdict went against him--Mildred, who had consoled herself so quickly
and so well--Mildred, whom he had held a spotless blossom o