hall, he
steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and--

"Ah!--there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
lives--the hated one--_lives_! And he is no longer rich, no longer
independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life; and
as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he stoops to
pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or meaning for
him--and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth again, takes
up the bottles, and disappears from the house.

"Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you believe.
This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But when his
eloquence meets your ears--when you hear this arraignment, and the
emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken case,
then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe that
such a monster lives.

"But you say, _some one_ entered that room--_some one_ stilled the
fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may have,
but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or innocence we
are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for which you are
responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the scene which
hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting Adelaide, or
choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.

"Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister's testimony, under the
cross-examination of the people's prosecutor, left the charge of murder
still hanging over the defendant's head. But the brother has forgotten
this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will you
dim that joy--sustain this charge of murder?

"If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this degenerate
son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative and
hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
cause in your hands. It could be placed i