hall I be hanged for that?

"But now, thank God, I am full of hope that he is alive, and that good
hope has given me the courage to make this great effort to save my own
life.

"Hitherto I have been able to contradict my accusers positively; but now
I come to a mysterious circumstance that I own puzzles me. Most persons
accused of murder could, if they chose, make a clean breast, and tell
you the whole matter. But this is not my case. I know shoes from boots,
and I know Kate Gaunt from a liar and a murderess. But, when all is
said, this is still a dark, mysterious business, and there are things in
it I can only deal with as you do, gentlemen, by bringing my wits to
bear upon them in reasonable conjecture.

"Caroline Ryder swears she heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help. And Mr. Gaunt
has certainly disappeared.

"My accusers have somewhat weakened this by trying to palm off the body
of Thomas Leicester on you for the body of Mr. Gaunt. But the original
mystery remains, and puzzles me. I might fairly appeal to you to
disbelieve the witness. She is proved incontinent, and a practised liar,
and she forswore herself in this court, and my lord is in two minds
about committing her. But a liar does not always lie, and, to be honest,
I think she really _believes_ she heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help, for she
went straight to his bedroom; and that looks as if she really thought
she heard his voice. But a liar may be mistaken. Do not forget that.
Distance affects the voice; and I think the voice she heard was Thomas
Leicester's, and the place it came from higher up the mere.

"This, my notion, will surprise you less when I prove to you that
Leicester's voice bore a family likeness to Mr. Gaunt's. I shall call
two witnesses who have been out shooting with Mr. Gaunt and Tom
Leicester, and have heard Leicester halloo in the wood, and taken it for
Mr. Gaunt.

"Must I tell you the whole truth? This Leicester has always passed for
an illegitimate son of Mr. Gaunt's father. He resembled my husband in
form, stature, and voice: he had the Gaunt mole, and has often spoken of
it by that name. My husband forgave him many faults for no other
reason--and I bought wares and filled his pack for no other reason--than
this; that he was my husband's brother by nature, though not in law.
'HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE.'

"Ah, that is a royal device; yet how often in this business have the
advisers of the crown forgotten it?

"My lord, and gentlemen of the