Half an hour went by, and at length the door opened. Ah--now for it! But no. One of the intelligent jurymen wished to ask his lordship whether in the event of them not being satisfied as to the identity, they could convict Durnford and acquit the prisoner. He was answered with exemplary patience, and the door closed again. The Bar lifted its eyebrows--such of it as was able to keep from sniggering, that is. The light of the setting sun streamed in at the windows, throwing its soft gleam upon the serried rows of anxious faces. And the accused--of what was he thinking? Was it of his beautiful home, which it was only too probable he would never enter again? Or was it of her whose first vows just such a golden sunbeam as this had fallen on and hallowed and witnessed? At length the door opened a second time, and the jury came forth. It was noticeable that the prisoner, who had been hurriedly put back into the dock, did not even glance in their direction, but continued to look straight in front of him. "Gentlemen, are you all agreed upon your verdict?" "We are." The official's voice had a vague, far-away ring in Roland's ears as it continued: "How find you the prisoner? Guilty or Not Guilty?" "We find him--Guilty." CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN. "I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY." "Guilty." The fateful word rang through the room, producing something like a shuddering gasp among the close-packed audience. It rang in the brain of the prisoner, "Guilty! Dorrien of Cranston to be hanged--to be hanged by the neck until dead. Guilty!" Thus the hideous refrain danced through the wretched man's brain in clanging rhythm. And what he had gone through during the trial alone--apart from the period which had elapsed since his arrest--was sufficient expiation for a score of murders far more cold-blooded and deliberate than this, for it was as a thousand years of hell. The most astonished person in the room, perhaps, as this verdict was given, was the judge himself; and forthwith his opinion of the intelligence of juries, at no time high, underwent a stride of improvement. This was an intelligent jury. For his lordship was as morally certain of the prisoner's guilt as though he had seen him perpetrate the homicide, yet how any jury could convict on the face of his summing up was a marvel. His trained mind had recognised that the evidence legally was not sufficient to hang a dog, and he had summed up accordingly, yet the jury had convicted. It now remained to pass the dread and only sentence of the law. Already his lordship was nervously fumbling with the black cap.