The learned counsel for the prosecution, he said, had very properly impressed upon the jury that they must lose sight of any such side issue as class-distinction, and form their opinion of the case by the light of hard, cold reason and the dry facts of the evidence. That evidence they had had put before them in the most careful and patient manner, and it was his own especial function, said his lordship, to explain the law on the subject of such of it as appeared conflicting. For upwards of an hour the judge continued, weighing the arguments of both counsel in calm, dispassionate and masterly fashion. But whether his lordship was against the prisoner or not, it puzzled the public to discern. His charge was a pattern of impartiality no less than of lucidity. But the substance of it was now adverse, now favourable. One of the most regrettable features of the trial, continued his lordship, was that there had been next to no defence whatever. No attempt had been made to prove an _alibi_. If the prisoner had not been near the neighbourhood at the time of his brother's disappearance, surely there should be no great difficulty in obtaining evidence to that effect. But no such evidence had been put forward. The question of identity played a very important part indeed in this case. If the jury believed the evidence of Johnston, Devine and Pollock, they would consider the identity proved. But Johnston was a discharged servant, and the evidence of such against a former employer was always to be received with extreme caution, and in his case the greatest animus was shown to have been entertained by him against the prisoner. Devine was a man of notoriously bad character, but he appears to have had no real motive for injuring the accused. But James Pollock was altogether different from both of these witnesses. He was a man of the highest respectability; a man of keen intelligence, resource and courage, in short, a type of that most admirable body of men, the seafaring toilers of our coasts. This man then had seen through the disguise of the pseudo-Durnford, and under it had seen the identity of the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. The piece of envelope put forward, bearing as it did nearly the complete name of the prisoner, and part of a London address, was to his lordship's mind the completing link in the chain of identity. Down went the hopes of the prisoner's friends, down to zero. The judge was summing up dead against him.