In the morning they had tried a yokel for stealing a pig. The defence--a guinea's worth--eloquently advanced and ardently pressed--was that the prosecutor had presented the prisoner with the pig in a moment of conviviality. The prosecutor met the suggestion with amazement, the jury with smiles: one might get drunk, but no man was ever so drunk as to give his pig away! Verdict--Guilty. His Lordship passed a light sentence, faintly smiling over the ways of a world which, after nearly fifty years in the law and eighteen on the Bench, still remained to him rather remote and incomprehensible. This case of the pig was a merry case. It lent itself to jokes, and young Bertie Rackstraw's caricature (he solaced briefless days with art) of counsel for the defence arm-in-arm with a gowned and bewigged pig was circulated and much admired. _Pignus amoris_, another wag wrote under it. Now, in the afternoon, a different atmosphere obtained in court. There were no jokes and no caricatures. People were very quiet. Counsel for the prosecution put his searching questions gravely and gently, almost with pitifulness; counsel for the defence was careful, earnest, anxious. Progress was slow, almost every word of the evidence had to go down in the Judge's red book, to be written down in Sir Christopher's neat precise handwriting. A man was on trial for his life and, as afternoon darkened into evening, the battle drew near its fateful issue. He was a big, burly, stolid, honest-looking fellow, inarticulate, not able to help himself by his answers or to take proper advantage of the dexterous leads given him by his counsel, who strained his right to lead since life was at stake. In truth, though he was sorry that he had killed her--since his old tenderness for her had revived, and moreover he wished he had killed the other man instead--he could not see that he had done wrong. He knew that the law said he had, and drew therefrom a most formidable conclusion; but he did not feel convicted in his own heart. She had deceived him and, when discovered, had derided him with ugly words. Had he slain her then and there in his rage, the plea of manslaughter might well have prevailed. But he said nothing to her; in grim silence he had taken his way to the town and bought the knife, and waited for two days his opportunity; then cunningly laid in wait where she would come alone, and swiftly, in silence again, killed her. But may not rage--ungovernable rage--last two days and be cunning? Round this the battle raged. He had been cunning, calm, methodical.