The contention of the prosecution was very simple. It was to nobody’s interest but mine and Mr. Gascoyne’s that Lord Gascoyne should die, and whilst Mr. Gascoyne was in London, the prisoner was constantly in Lord Gascoyne’s company. Further, it was pointed out that I was the only person left alone with the bottle of claret, and that the moment I was so left alone was the only one during which the wine could have been poisoned. I was further proved to have been in possession of arsenic for which I could not account. It had been suggested that the poison might have been in the cup of tea which Lord Gascoyne had drunk, but there was nothing to support this view. It was regrettable that this cup had been removed, and washed before it had been examined. Lord Gascoyne, however, was taken ill almost immediately after he had drunk the tea. This made the insinuation that it was poisoned unlikely, as arsenic had, as far as could be proved, never acted instantaneously. My counsel, in the course of his address, made an earnest appeal that everything alien to the case which had been circulated, he could only say in a most scandalous manner, in certain organs of the press, should be put out of mind. He insinuated that in this respect he felt a greater confidence in their lordships than he would have done in an ordinary jury. He concluded by the usual passionate appeal for the benefit of any doubt which might linger in their minds. The Lord High Steward summed up the evidence, and a very brief summing-up it was. Then their lordships retired, and after three hours’ deliberation I was brought back into court. I knew directly I returned what the verdict was, for in all faces there was the same look of intense gravity. Over the entire assembly there lay an almost oppressive silence. I noticed that people avoided looking at me, as if it were an intrusion to witness the emotions of any human being at such a moment. After the verdict was given there passed across the whole place a sort of sigh, followed by a terrible hush. I stood up and heard the sentence, and then, with the most profound reverence to the entire court, withdrew, satisfied that I could not be accused of having behaved otherwise than with a calmness and dignity befitting the privilege of belonging to such an assembly. Chapter XXX I suppose the feelings of a human being awaiting extinction on a near date fixed by the law must vary according to temperament. In this, as in most things, ignorance has its advantages. A chaplain working on a mind incapable of the intellectual effort of scepticism might send a criminal to the scaffold with a distinct feeling that in spite of its other disadvantages, murder plus hanging plus repentance was a short cut to eternal bliss—a view of the question which would no doubt shock the reverend gentleman who had inadvertently been a most effective advocate of murder.