"He came after what had seemed to be hours of waiting, singing at the top of his voice. Mr. Rush tells me there is talk of two pistols having been fired that night, and that a bullet from a thirty-eight-calibre pistol entered a tree just to the left of the gate. I heard no one else in the grove. My revolver was a forty-one and can be found in the drawer of my desk at home. I fired at Balfame the moment he reached the gate. I vaguely remember seeing another figure almost beside him, but as Balfame fell I ran for the lane and my car. I had no intention of giving myself up. I knew that the crime would be laid to political enemies, who, no doubt, could produce alibis. This proved to be the case, and when I broke down and was carried to the hospital it was with the assurance of public belief in gun-men as the perpetrators of the crime. That Enid Balfame, that serene and splendid woman, whose life has been a miracle of good taste and high sense of duty, would be accused never crossed my mind. "No, it is impossible for me to say with truth that I repent. I might have, once. But these last six months! Millions of men in the greatest civilisations of earth are killing one another daily for no reason whatever save that man, who seeks to direct the destinies of the world, is a complete and pitiful failure. Why, pray, should a woman repent having broken one of his laws and removed one of the most worthless and abominable of his sex, who had made the life of a beloved friend past enduring? Moreover, I have saved hundreds of lives at the risk of my own. I die in peace. "This statement is made with full knowledge of impending death and without hope of recovery." "This ante-mortem statement," concluded Mr. Rush, "was taken down in longhand by the stenographer who sits below, and signed by Anna Steuer, M.D., of Elsinore, Brabant County, State of New York. It was witnessed by Drs. MacDougal and Meyers, who accompanied me from the hospital to the Court-house. Mr. Broderick of the _New York News_, as I mentioned before, also heard the confession and affixed his signature." He handed the sheets to the jury and stepped down. For a moment there was no sound but the scratching of pencils on the opposite side of the room and the faint rustle of paper in the jury-box. Mrs. Balfame had drawn her veil across her face and sat huddled in her chair. The two doctors and Broderick took the stand briefly, the former testifying that Dr. Steuer had been of clear and sound mind when she made and signed her statement. Then the district attorney stood up, and in lifeless tones--Dr. Anna had been his family's most cherished friend--asked if there was any prospect of the self-confessed criminal being examined further. Rush went over to Mrs. Balfame and pressed his hand hard upon her shoulder. "May it please your honour," he said, "Dr. Anna Steuer expired before we left the hospital."