As she answered firmly yet modestly each question put to her by Mr. England, the judge was observed to listen with close attention and the jury to be unusually interested. Mr. England, scanning their faces with practised readiness, saw in imagination their short retirement and a unanimous verdict of 'not guilty' proceeding from the lips of the foreman. Then, as he approached the critical period of the question which had been so unlucky in its effects during the preliminary examination, he felt as nearly nervous as a man of his proverbial courage and varied experience could be. He was more than half disposed to omit the question altogether; how he hated himself for having been fool enough to put it in the first instance. 'I don't think I need trouble the witness with any other questions, your Honour,' he said tentatively; but here Dayrell rose and evidently prepared himself to interpose. With lightning quickness Mr. England decided to put the question in his own form and fashion, rather than leave it to the enemy. 'One minute, Miss Esther,' he said, as if the idea had just occurred to him. 'I think you said that you were uncertain, or could not quite recall, whether you had ever seen the accused Lance Trevanion before you left the Eumeralla to come to Ballarat?' This he said with a smilingly suggestive air which would have given the cue to an ordinary witness less imbued with a sense of unfaltering right than Tessie Lawless. But as the girl's clear brown eyes searched his face with a troubled expression, he comprehended that there was no hope of evasion, that he had got hold of one of those impracticable witnesses who really do speak 'the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' to the consternation of lawyers and the disaster of defendants. 'I said that I _had_ seen him before, at the Eumeralla,' she said simply, 'I can't swear anything else. I _did_ see him, and it was a bad day for him--and--and for me too,' she added. 'Now think again, Miss Esther. Reflect that your answer to my question is perhaps more important than any one you ever made in your life. How can you account for Trevanion being so far from Ballarat? What business had he there, and why should he leave Growlers' Gully, to which he came from the ship, as I can prove?' The girl looked again at the dock and those who stood therein--at Ned Lawless, who lounged good-natured as ever, and smiling to all appearance; at Lance, who stood erect, darkly frowning and with a fixed stern expression, as of one who should never smile more. 'It will break my heart,' she said, 'but I must speak the truth while I stand here. I _did_ see him on the Eumeralla, before we left home for Ballarat, one day with Ned.' 'I must ask again whether there is any possibility of your being mistaken in the identity of the accused?' persisted Mr. England. 'You have heard doubtless of men being so wonderfully alike that strangers could not in many cases discover the difference?'