nd large, sorrowful eyes
that ominous 'Yes!' which had failed to reach his trembling lips."

CHAPTER XVI

"NON PROVEN"

"There is no doubt," continued the man in the corner, "that what little
sympathy the young girl's terrible position had aroused in the public
mind had died out the moment that David Graham left the witness-box on
the second day of the trial. Whether Edith Crawford was guilty of murder
or not, the callous way in which she had accepted a deformed lover, and
then thrown him over, had set every one's mind against her.

"It was Mr. Graham himself who had been the first to put the Procurator
Fiscal in possession of the fact that the accused had written to David
from London, breaking off her engagement. This information had, no
doubt, directed the attention of the Fiscal to Miss Crawford, and the
police soon brought forward the evidence which had led to her arrest.

"We had a final sensation on the third day, when Mr. Campbell, jeweller,
of High Street, gave his evidence. He said that on October 25th a lady
came to his shop and offered to sell him a pair of diamond earrings.
Trade had been very bad, and he had refused the bargain, although the
lady seemed ready to part with the earrings for an extraordinarily low
sum, considering the beauty of the stones.

"In fact it was because of this evident desire on the lady's part to
sell at _any_ cost that he had looked at her more keenly than he
otherwise would have done. He was now ready to swear that the lady that
offered him the diamond earrings was the prisoner in the dock.

"I can assure you that as we all listened to this apparently damnatory
evidence, you might have heard a pin drop amongst the audience in that
crowded court. The girl alone, there in the dock, remained calm and
unmoved. Remember that for two days we had heard evidence to prove that
old Dr. Crawford had died leaving his daughter penniless, that having no
mother she had been brought up by a maiden aunt, who had trained her to
be a governess, which occupation she had followed for years, and that
certainly she had never been known by any of her friends to be in
possession of solitaire diamond earrings.

"The prosecution had certainly secured an ace of trumps, but Sir James
Fenwick, who during the whole of that day had seemed to take little
interest in the proceedings, here rose from his seat, and I knew at once
that he had got a tit-bit in the way of a 'point' up his sleeve. Gaunt,