ase. And that charge of his
throughout, far from being a judicial summing-up, was a virulent address
for the prosecution, just as his bearing hitherto in examining and
cross-examining witnesses had been that of counsel for the Crown. The
statement that she had made in her own defence he utterly ignored, save
in one particular, where he saw his opportunity further to prejudice her
case.

"I am sorry," he said, his face lengthening, "to remember something that
dropped even from the gentlewoman herself. She pretends to religion and
loyalty very much--how greatly she wept at the death of King Charles the
Martyr--and owns her great obligations to the late king and his royal
brother. And yet no sooner is one in the grave than she forgets all
gratitude and entertains those that were rebels against his royal
successor.

"I will not say," he continued with deliberate emphasis, "what hand
her husband had in the death of that blessed martyr; she has enough to
answer for her own guilt; and I must confess that it ought not, one way
or other, to make any ingredient into this case what she was in former
times."

But he had dragged it in, protesting that it should not influence the
case, yet coldly, calculatingly intending it to do so. She was the widow
of a regicide, reason and to spare in the views of himself and his royal
master why she should be hounded to her death upon any pretext.

Thereafter he reviewed the evidence against her, dwelt upon the
shuffling of Dunne, deduced that the reason for so much lying was to
conceal the damning truth--namely, that she knew Hicks for a rebel when
she gave him shelter, and thus became the partner of his horrible
guilt. Upon that he charged them to find their verdict "without any
consideration of persons, but considering only the truth."

Nevertheless, although his commands were clear, some of the jury would
seem to have feared the God whom Jeffreys invoked so constantly. One
of them rose to ask him pertinently, in point of law, whether it was
treason to have harboured Hicks before the man had been convicted of
treason.

Curtly he answered them that beyond doubt it was, and upon that
assurance the jury withdrew, the Court settled down into an expectant
silence, and her ladyship dozed again in her chair.

The minutes passed. It was growing late, and Jeffreys was eager to be
done with this prejudged affair, that he might dine in peace. His voice
broke the stillness of the court, protesti