attention fixed on him--on his blotched face--on the short, grizzled
hair above it--on his knotty, murderous right hand, hanging loose over
the bar in front of him, like the paw of a wild beast over the edge of
its den. Then the horror of him--the double horror of confronting
him, in the first place, and afterward of seeing that he was an old
man--overcame me, and I turned away, faint, sick, and shuddering.
I never faced him again; and, at the end of my evidence, Robert
considerately took me out.

When we met once more at the end of the examination, Robert told me that
the prisoner never spoke and never changed his position. He was either
fortified by the cruel composure of a savage, or his faculties had not
yet thoroughly recovered from the disease that had so lately shaken
them. The magistrate seemed to doubt if he was in his right mind; but
the evidence of the medical man relieved this uncertainty, and the
prisoner was committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter.

Why not on a charge of murder? Robert explained the law to me when I
asked that question. I accepted the explanation, but it did not satisfy
me. Mary Mallinson was killed by a blow from the hand of Noah Truscott.
That is murder in the sight of God. Why not murder in the sight of the
law also?

* * * * *

June 18th. To-morrow is the day appointed for the trial at the Old
Bailey.

Before sunset this evening I went to look at Mary's grave. The turf has
grown so green since I saw it last, and the flowers are springing up
so prettily. A bird was perched dressing his feathers on the low white
headstone that bears the inscription of her name and age. I did not
go near enough to disturb the little creature. He looked innocent and
pretty on the grave, as Mary herself was in her lifetime. When he flew
away I went and sat for a little by the headstone, and read the mournful
lines on it. Oh, my love! my love! what harm or wrong had you ever
done in this world, that you should die at eighteen by a blow from a
drunkard's hand?

June 19th. The trial. My experience of what happened at it is limited,
like my experience of the examination at the police-office, to the time
occupied in giving my own evidence. They made me say much more than I
said before the magistrate. Between examination and cross-examination,
I had to go into almost all the particulars about poor Mary and her
funeral that I have written i n this journal; the jury listening to
every word I sp