"Where was Pearce now?"

"She didn't know."

"Had he disappeared since that Sunday evening?"

"She didn't know."

"Had she seen him since?"

"No."

"Had Mr. Wilson ever threatened to discharge her for insolence to Mrs.
Armstrong?"

"Yes; but she knew he was not in earnest."

"Was not the clasp-knife that had been found always left in the kitchen
for culinary purposes?"

"No--not always; generally--but not _this _time that Armstrong went away,
she was sure."

"Mary Strugnell, you be a false-sworn woman before God and man!"
interrupted the male prisoner with great violence of manner.

The outbreak of the prisoner was checked and rebuked by the judge, and
the cross-examination soon afterwards closed. Had the counsel been
allowed to follow up his advantage by an address to the jury, he would, I
doubt not, spite of their prejudices against the prisoners, have obtained
an acquittal; but as it was, after a neutral sort of charge from the
judge, by no means the ablest that then adorned the bench, the jurors,
having deliberated for something more than half an hour, returned into
court with a verdict of "guilty" against both prisoners, accompanying it,
however, with a strong recommendation to mercy!

"Mercy!" said the judge. "What for? On what ground?"

The jurors stared at each other and at the judge: they had no reason to
give! The fact was, their conviction of the prisoners' guilt had been
very much shaken by the cross-examination of the chief witness for the
prosecution, and this recommendation was a compromise which conscience
made with doubt. I have known many such instances.

The usual ridiculous formality of asking the wretched convicts what they
had to urge why sentence should not be passed upon them was gone through;
the judge, with unmoved feelings, put on the fatal cap; and then a new
and startling light burst upon the mysterious, bewildering affair.

"Stop, my lord!" exclaimed Armstrong with rough vehemence. "Hear me
speak! I'll tell ye all about it; I will indeed, my lord. Quiet,
Martha, I tell ye. It's I, my lord, that's guilty, not the woman. God
bless ye, my lord; not the wife! Doant hurt the wife, and I'se tell ye
all about it. I _alone_ am guilty; not, the Lord be praised, of murder,
but of robbery!"

"John!--John!" sobbed the wife, clinging passionately to her husband,
"let us die together!"

"Quiet, Martha, I tell ye! Yes, my lord, I'se tell ye all about it. I was
gone away, wife and I,