"Mr. Gaunt may be alive, or may be dead. He was certainly alive on the fifteenth October, and it lies on the Crown to prove him dead, and not on me to prove him alive. But, as for the body that forms the subject of this indictment, it is the body of Thomas Leicester, who was seen on the sixteenth October, at one in the morning, drunk and staggering, and making for Hernshaw bridge, which leads to his mother's house; and on all his former visits to Hernshaw Castle he went on to his mother's, as I shall prove. This time, he never reached her, as I shall prove; but on his way to her did meet his death by the will of God, and no fault of man or woman, in Hernshaw Mere. "Swear Sarah Leicester." _The Judge._ I think you say you have several witnesses? _Prisoner._ More than twenty, my lord. _The Judge._ We cannot possibly dispose of them this evening. We will hear your evidence tomorrow. Prisoner, this will enable you to consult with your legal advisers, and let me urge upon you to prove, if you can, that Mr. Gaunt has a sufficient motive for hiding and not answering Mr. Atkins' invitation to inherit a large estate. Some such proof is necessary to complete your defense: and I am sorry to see you have made no mention of it in your address, which was otherwise able. _Prisoner._ My lord, I think I can prove my own innocence without casting a slur upon my husband. _The Judge._ You _think?_ when your life is at stake. Be not so mad as to leave so large a hole in your defense, if you can mend it. Take _advice._ He said this very solemnly; then rose and left the court. Mrs. Gaunt was conveyed back to prison, and there was soon prostrated by the depression that follows an unnatural excitement. Mr. Houseman found her on the sofa, pale and dejected, and clasping the gaoler's wife convulsively, who applied hartshorn to her nostrils. He proved but a Job's comforter. Her defense, creditable as it was to a novice, seemed wordy and weak to him, a lawyer: and he was horrified at the admissions she had made. In her place he would have admitted nothing he could not throughly explain. He came to insist on a change of tactics. When he saw her sad condition, he tried to begin by consoling, and encouraging her. But his own serious misgivings unfitted him for this task, and very soon, notwithstanding the state she was in, he was almost scolding her for being so mad as to withstand the judge, and set herself against his advice. "There," said he, "my lord kept his word, and became counsel for you. 'Close that gap in your defense,' says he, 'and you will very likely be acquitted.' 'Nay,' says you, 'I prefer to chance it.' What madness! what injustice!" "Injustice! to whom?" "To whom? why, to yourself." "What, may I not be unjust to myself?"