o one else to do so except you?"

"No."

"Did he put the pen into her hand?"

"Yes."

"And assist her while she signed the will?"

"Yes."

"How did he assist her?"

"_By raising her in the bed and supporting her when he had raised
her_."

"Did he guide her hand?"

"No."

"Did he touch her hand at all?"

"_I think he did just touch her hand_."

"When he did touch her hand _was she dead_?"

At this last question the woman turned terribly pale, was seen to
falter, and fell in a swoon on the ground, and so _revealed the truth_
which she had come to _deny_.

CHAPTER XLI.

MR.J.L. TOOLE ON THE BENCH.

Sir Henry Hawkins was sitting at Derby Assizes in the Criminal Court,
which, as usual in country towns, was crowded so that you could
scarcely breathe, while the air you had to breathe was like that of a
pestilence. There was, however, a little space left behind the dock
which admitted of the passage of one man at a time.

Windows and doors were all securely closed, so as to prevent draught,
for nothing is so bad as draught when you are hot, and nothing makes
you so hot as being stived by hundreds in a narrow space without
draught.

He happened to look up into the faces of this shining but by no means
brilliant assembly, when what should he observe peeping over the
shoulders of two buxom factory women with blue kerchiefs but the _head
of J.L. Toole_! At least, it looked like Mr. Toole's head; but how it
came there it was impossible to say. It was a delight anywhere, but it
seemed now out of place.

The marshal asked the Sheriff, "Isn't that Toole?"

The answer was, "It looks like him."

We knew he was in the town, and that there was to be a bespeak night,
when her Majesty's Judges and the Midland Circuit would honour, etc.
Derby is not behind other towns in this respect.

Presently the Judge's eyes went in the direction of the object which
excited so much curiosity, and, like every one else, he was interested
in the appearance of the great comedian, although at that moment he
was not acting a part, but enduring a situation.

In the afternoon the actor was on the Bench sitting next to the
marshal, and assuming an air of great gravity, which would have
become a Judge of the greatest dignity. There was never the faintest
suggestion of a smile. He looked, indeed, like Byron's description of
the Corsair:--

"And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope, withering, fled, and Mercy sig