Tom Bristow seldom let a day pass over without seeing Lionel Dering. Sometimes he accompanied Mr. Hoskyns to the prison, sometimes he went alone. The lawyer and he held many long consultations together as to the probable result of the trial. They could not conceal from themselves that there was grave cause for apprehension. The weight of circumstantial evidence that would be brought to bear against Lionel was almost overwhelming; while, on the other hand, not a single tittle of evidence was forthcoming which tended to implicate any other person. Notwithstanding all this, Tom was as morally convinced of his friend’s innocence as he was of his own existence. Mr. Hoskyns, in his way, was equally positive. He felt sure that Lionel had not knowingly committed the crime, but he thought it possible that he might have done it in a fit of mental aberration, without retaining the least recollection of it afterwards. In the annals of criminal jurisprudence such cases are by no means unknown. And this was the supposition on which the eminent counsel whom he had retained for the trial seemed inclined to base his argument for the defence. Hoskyns had engaged a detective from Scotland Yard, and had left no stone unturned in his efforts to lift at least some portion of the dreadful weight of evidence from off his client’s shoulders, but up to the present time all such efforts had been utterly in vain. That there might possibly be some foul conspiracy on foot to get rid of Lionel was an idea that for a little while found a lodging in the lawyer’s mind. But in all the wide world, as far as he knew, there was only one person who would be benefited by the death of Lionel Dering. That person was Kester St. George, and of evidence implicating him in the murder there was absolutely none. It was currently reported that he was lying seriously ill in London, which accounted for his not having been seen in Duxley since the day of the inquest. The shock of his friend Osmond’s dreadful death, taken in conjunction with the terrible accusation against his cousin, and the fact that he himself had been called upon to give evidence at the inquest, was considered by the gossips of the little town amply sufficient to account for Mr. St. George’s illness. It was to be hoped that his health would be restored before the day appointed for his cousin’s trial, he being one of the chief witnesses who would be called on that important occasion.