ld have remained silent if the disposition which your Honor and
the District Attorney proposed to make of this last testimony were not
in danger of reconsideration from the appeal which the witness has just
made. I believe, with you, that her testimony should be disregarded. I
intend, if I have the power, that it shall be disregarded."

The Judge held up his hand, as if to warn the prisoner and was about to
speak.

"I entreat that I may be heard," said Mansell, with the utmost calmness.
"I beg the Court not to imagine that I am about to imitate the witness
in any sudden or ill-considered attempt at a confession. All I intend is
that her self-accusation shall not derive strength or importance from
any doubts of my guilt which may spring from the defence which has been
interposed in my behalf."

Mr. Orcutt, who, from the moment the prisoner began to speak, had given
evidences of a great indecision as to whether he should allow his client
to continue or not, started at these words, so unmistakably pointing
toward a demolishment of his whole case, and hurriedly rose. But a
glance at Imogene seemed to awaken a new train of thought, and he as
hurriedly reseated himself.

The prisoner, seeing he had nothing to fear from his counsel's
interference, and meeting with no rebuke from the Judge, went calmly on:

"Yesterday I felt differently in regard to this matter. If I could be
saved from my fate by a defence seemingly so impregnable, I was willing
to be so saved, but to-day I would be a coward and a disgrace to my sex
if, in face of the generous action of this woman, I allowed a falsehood
of whatever description to place her in peril, or to stand between me
and the doom that probably awaits me. Sir," he continued, turning for
the first time to Mr. Orcutt, with a gesture of profound respect, "you
had been told that the path from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the bridge, and
so on to Monteith Quarry Station, could not be traversed in ninety
minutes, and you believed it. You were not wrong. It cannot be gone over
in that time. But I now say to your Honor and to the jury, that the
distance from my aunt's house to the Quarry Station can be made in that
number of minutes if a way can be found to cross the river without
going around by the bridge. I know," he proceeded, as a torrent of
muttered exclamations rose on his ear, foremost among which was that of
the much-discomfited Hickory, "that to many of you, to all of you,
perhaps, all m