It was now two o’clock, and although there were three or four minor witnesses still to be examined, the general impression seemed to be that, if the jury were not long in making up their minds, the whole unhappy business would be brought to an end by six o’clock at the latest. The prisoner, who, by the judge’s instructions, had quite early in the day been accommodated with a chair, had listened with quiet attention to the progress of the case, but had not otherwise seemed to take more interest in it than any ordinary spectator might have done. He had a thorough comprehension from the first that the trial must go dead against him, but he never abated by one jot the quiet, resolute calmness of his manner. He was the same to-day as he had been on the first day of his imprisonment; only, to-day, he was the focus of a thousand inquisitive eyes; but he seemed as utterly unconscious of the fact as though he were sitting in the silence and solitude of his cell. Hour by hour, as the trial went on, Tom sent brief notes by a messenger to Edith. In these notes all that he could say was that such and such a witness was under examination, and that everything was going on as favourably as could be expected. He knew how miserably ineffective such messages would be to allay the dreadful anxiety of her to whom they were addressed; but, as he asked himself, what more could he write? He took advantage of the few minutes allowed for luncheon to run up in person to Alder Cottage. Edith, that day, looked to him a dozen years older than he had ever seen her look before. Very pale and worn, but very calm also. But there was something in her eyes—the wild, yearning, terrified look of some poor hunted creature, as it were, who sees that for it there is no possible door of escape—which revealed to Tom something of the terrible struggle going on within. It was but scant comfort that he could give her, but even for that she was grateful. Tom found that he had still five minutes to spare when he got back to the court, so he hunted up Jabez Creede, whom he found haunting the purlieus of a neighbouring tavern, but apparently lacking either the money or the courage to venture inside. Tom supplied him with both, and, after two steaming glasses of rum and water, Jabez, with a sort of moist gratitude in his voice, declared that he felt better—“Very much better indeed, thank you, Mr. Bristow, sir.” Tom; before going up to Alder Cottage, had contrived to have a brief note passed to Mr. Sprague. “I hope you are prepared, as I expect that I shall require your services.” On the reassembling of the court, Pearce, the butler at Park Newton, was the first witness called. He deposed to no material facts with which the reader is not already acquainted.