present share the same view.

Then Sir Daniel proceeded to go into the evidence at great length,
reading passages here and there from his notes. When he came to the
evidence of the servant Rees, he threw out a suggestion which struck
doubt into many a mind which had till then believed in the prisoner's
innocence.

'A very great deal in this case undoubtedly turns on this evidence as
to footsteps. You may, I think, take it as admitted on all hands, by
the prisoner's counsel as well as by the prosecution, that the witness
is correct in saying that she heard the prisoner leave the house. That
she recognised her walk correctly that time there can be no manner of
doubt. Then we come to the second time, when she heard footsteps
ascending the stairs. And I may pause here to remark that I think a
quite exaggerated importance has been attached to the discrepancy
between the witness's ideas of time and the correct idea. Gentlemen,
we should all of us fail if we strove to indicate with accuracy the
length of a given interval of time. We use the expressions "five
minutes" and "ten minutes" in ordinary conversation, without attaching
any very definite meaning to them, and, therefore, I cannot see that
the witness is in any way discredited if she mistook a period of three
minutes for one of ten, or _vice versa_.'

The jury nodded approval. Now they were on firm ground.

'But it is her answer to Mr. Pollard, when he asked her as to the
second set of footsteps, that I wish to draw your attention to.
She said, as I took it, "I did not notice them"--that is, the
footsteps--"but I think they must have been Miss Owen's, or else I
should have noticed the difference." Now, I think you will see the
importance of that.' (The jury try to see it, and, failing in that,
try to look as if they saw it, and fail a second time.) 'Remember the
state of things is this: the witness is wide awake; she has just been
down to the front-door and up again, and ten minutes after, or three
minutes only according to Mr. Tressamer, she hears someone come in and
walk upstairs. Now, gentlemen, under those circumstances, one would
naturally expect the witness to be on the alert to distinguish any
difference, if difference there were, between the footsteps. And if
the person entering the second time were not the prisoner, to whose
tread she was accustomed, and which she was expecting to hear, but if
it were someone else--a man, let us say, with an entirely diffe