"Gentlemen, in every disputed matter the best way, I am told, is to begin by settling what both parties are agreed in, and so to narrow the matter. To use that way, then, I do heartily agree with the learned counsel that murder is a heinous crime, and that, black as it is at the best, yet it is still more detestable when 'tis a wife that murders her husband, and robs her child of a parent who can never be replaced. "I also agree with him that circumstantial evidence is often sufficient to convict a murderer; and, indeed, were it not so, that most monstrous of crimes would go oftenest unpunished: since, of all culprits, murderers do most shun the eyes of men in their dark deeds, and so provide before-hand that direct testimony to their execrable crime there shall be none. Only herein I am advised to take a distinction that escaped the learned sergeant; I say that first of all it ought to be proved directly, and to the naked eye, that a man has been murdered; and then, if none saw the crime done, let circumstances point out the murderer. "But here, they put the cart before the horse; they find a dead body, with no marks of violence whatever; and labour to prove by circumstantial evidence alone that this mere dead body is a murdered body. This, I am advised, is bad in law, and contrary to general precedents; and the particular precedents for it are not examples, but warnings; since both the prisoners so rashly convicted were proved innocent, after their execution." (The judge took a note of this distinction.) "Then, to go from principles to the facts, I agree and admit that, in a moment of anger, I was so transported out of myself as to threaten my husband's life before Caroline Ryder. But afterwards, when I saw him face to face, then, that I threatened him with _violence_, that I deny. The fact is I had just learned that he had committed a capital offense: and what I threatened him with was the law. This was proved by Jane Bannister. She says she heard me say the constables should come for him next morning. For what? to murder him?" _The Judge._ Give me leave, madam. Shall you prove Mr. Gaunt had committed a capital offense? _Prisoner._ I could, my lord; but I am loth to do it. For, if I did, I should cast him into worse trouble than I am in myself. _The Judge_ (shaking his head gravely). Let me advise you to advance nothing you are not able and willing to prove. _The Prisoner._ Then, I confine myself to this: it was proved by a witness for the Crown that in the dining-room I threatened my husband to his face with the law. Now this threat, and not that other extravagant threat, which he never heard you know, was clearly the threat which caused him to abscond that night.