How the weeks dragged on! Autumn was fast changing into winter when the Quarter Sessions were held. Lance had expected to have been in Melbourne about the time. Only to think of it! And had he not paltered with his duty and his solemn promise might he not have been in England now, seeing the yearly miracle of the spring transformation in that favoured clime and hearing the surges beat against the frowning headlands of Tintagel? Madness was in his thoughts. Why did he not dash his brains out against his prison walls and so end the hideous burlesque upon truth and justice, honour and common honesty even? Why had he not courage to do so? No--it would become his father's son to die in ways and fashions many and varied; but within gaol walls! No! a thousand times, no! That would be a doom impossible for a Trevanion of Wychwood. From time to time he had gleams of hope--this miserable captive so unused to fetter and thrall. It _could_ not be. It should not be. The eternal justice of heaven would be falsified were this wrong to befall him. The words of prayer that he had lisped in childhood--the Bible lessons to so many of which he had hearkened in the old Norman Church at Wychwood--what would all these be but hollow cheats and ghastly mockeries were he to be found guilty? It was a simple impossibility. He had now but to wait--to eat out his heart for one other week, and then--oh! joy unspeakable! he would be free--free! A free man--not a prisoner! Did he ever imagine that he would attach such a meaning to the word freedom? It mattered not. Let him but once set foot outside this dismal gaol wall. Again he saw himself on the back of a good horse, or at the claim with good old Jack Polwarth and his wife and Tottie--poor dear Tottie! But here he could no longer follow out the chain of probabilities. His eyes filled with tears, and the once-proud Lance Trevanion, lowered in spirit and strength by confinement and meagre diet, threw himself upon his miserable pallet and sobbed like a child. * * * * * The 'next ensuing Court of Quarter Sessions,' to which Lance Trevanion had been committed for trial, was formally opened at Ballarat on a certain Wednesday at ten of the clock. The sheriff was in attendance, with bailiff and minor officials, and also various barristers, including Mr. England. An unusual number of police appeared on the scene, including the superintendent of the district--a very high personage indeed. All were in full uniform, while conspicuous among them stood Sergeant Dayrell, calm and impassive as usual, though a close observer might have noticed an occasional sign of impatience.