He took his seat. A dead silence hung over the vast assembly. The effect was too deep for words. At length a heavy, long-protracted sigh was heard throughout the crowd, as if men had held their breaths in awe, and found relief, only that moment, from the spell which bound them. Oh! how I longed that the verdict might then be taken. The sweet wife of the prisoner felt a hope which hitherto she had scarcely ventured to cherish, and clasping her husband’s hand, looked up into his face with a love no language can express, while the tears rolled fast and thick down her cheeks. At length the attorney general rose to reply. Guarding the jury against being led away by their feelings, he plunged as soon as possible into the argument, and keeping constantly before their minds the fact of the possession of Mr. Howard’s purse by the accused, and the exclamation used by the murderer at the moment of committing the deed, he soon succeeded in removing from their minds at least, the impression of the prisoner’s innocence. How my heart sickened as I saw them turn from one to the other, with those significant glances. And when the prosecuting officer sat down, after his adroit and effective harangue, I felt almost as if my own doom was at hand. The judge proceeded to charge the jury. Long afterward that judicial effort was talked of as a model of clear and comprehensive logic. It was as I feared. He bore terribly upon the prisoner, treated the story of the accused as of no credibility, and concluded by a powerful appeal to the jury not to be misled by the eloquence of counsel. Yet, even when thus performing what he deemed his duty, his eye happened to fall upon the prisoner’s wife, and I noticed that his lip quivered. The jury arose and retired. The anxiety, not to say excitement of the spectators, was wound up to an unusual pitch, and increased momentarily. Whatever might be the sentiment of those who were the arbiters of the prisoner’s fate, but one feeling seemed to pervade that vast assembly—and a deep, intense sympathy for the accused, had supplanted the almost universal opinion of his guilt with which the trial had opened. Men eagerly leaned forward to catch a sight of the proud bearing of Stanhope, or the touching demeanor of his wife, and more than one hand brushed away a tear as its owner beheld that melancholy group, awaiting the decision of its fate. As time passed on, the audience grew restless with impatience, glancing now at the clock and now at the door where the jury were expected to enter,—and when at length the bearers of the prisoner’s fate entered, one by one, with slow and solemn steps, like mourners on the shores of Styx, a deep-drawn breath of mingled dread and curiosity, was heard throughout the room. It was an ominous sign to me that every man of the jury avoided looking at the prisoner.