r and robbery, both so daring
and horrible that reason refused to believe that a young lady, born and
bred in the best social circle, could have conceived, much less
executed, so heinous a crime. She had been arrested in London at the
Midland Hotel, and brought to Edinburgh, where she was judicially
examined, bail being refused."

CHAPTER XV

A TERRIBLE PLIGHT

"Little more than a fortnight after that, Edith Crawford was duly
committed to stand her trial before the High Court of Justiciary. She
had pleaded 'Not Guilty' at the pleading diet, and her defence was
entrusted to Sir James Fenwick, one of the most eminent advocates at the
Criminal Bar.

"Strange to say," continued the man in the corner after a while, "public
opinion from the first went dead against the accused. The public is
absolutely like a child, perfectly irresponsible and wholly illogical;
it argued that since Miss Crawford had been ready to contract a marriage
with a half-demented, deformed creature for the sake of his L100,000 she
must have been equally ready to murder and rob an old lady for the sake
of L50,000 worth of jewellery, without the encumbrance of so undesirable
a husband.

"Perhaps the great sympathy aroused in the popular mind for David Graham
had much to do with this ill-feeling against the accused. David Graham
had, by this cruel and dastardly murder, lost the best--if not the
only--friend he possessed. He had also lost at one fell swoop the large
fortune which Lady Donaldson had been about to assign to him.

"The deed of gift had never been signed, and the old lady's vast wealth,
instead of enriching her favourite nephew, was distributed--since she
had made no will--amongst her heirs-at-law. And now to crown this long
chapter of sorrow David Graham saw the girl he loved accused of the
awful crime which had robbed him of friend and fortune.

"It was, therefore, with an unmistakable thrill of righteous
satisfaction that Edinburgh society saw this 'mercenary girl' in so
terrible a plight.

"I was immensely interested in the case, and journeyed down to Edinburgh
in order to get a good view of the chief actors in the thrilling drama
which was about to be unfolded there.

"I succeeded--I generally do--in securing one of the front seats among
the audience, and was already comfortably installed in my place in court
when through the trap door I saw the head of the prisoner emerge. She
was very becomingly dressed in deep black,