“But, gentlemen, I call upon you to draw a distinction between such words used by her, and such words used by him. All through this interview his manner to her was one of patient forbearance, while hers was one of furious taunting. Had Lord Clydesfold intended murdering her he would have committed the crime that night, and not have waited until she had time to go back to the village and spread the story of her marriage.” There was a buzz of excitement. Olivia’s hands clasped each other more tightly. “He goes to meet her in the Hawkwood Spinney at four o’clock the following day. He knows that on that day the marriage of a well-known and well-beloved young lady takes place at Hawkwood itself; that there will be an excitement attending such a marriage; that the whole of the village will be congregated in those very grounds; that persons will be roaming all over the place. “And yet the prosecution ask you to believe that this man, who throughout has shown so much patient resignation, a man possessed of no ordinary intelligence--that this man, my client, whose demeanor you have an opportunity of witnessing at this moment----” Here he raised his hand and pointed with a really splendid gesture to Faradeane’s calm and dignified face. “That this man was mad enough, fool enough, to go and meet this woman with the intention of murdering her, surrounded by a crowd, and murdering her not in a silent manner, but by shooting her. Do you think any man in his senses would have conceived so wildly and ridiculously foolish a plan? “Gentlemen, I have not to establish the innocence of the prisoner at the bar. It is sufficient for him if I convince you that his guilt is not certain. If I can show you that there is a doubt--a doubt of the faintest or slightest shadow--his lordship will tell you that I have the right to demand a verdict of ‘not guilty,’ and I say that such a doubt cannot but exist. “It is not incumbent upon me to show how this woman met with her death. She may in a moment of passion and disappointment have committed suicide. She may have attempted to take the life of the husband who had put her from him, and, in the struggle which took place, the weapon may have been pointed toward her, and she may thus have received her death. “These hypotheses are for your consideration. No one saw that woman die. No man can come forward and say that Lord Clydesfold’s hand committed the deed. Therefore, no one on my behalf can come forward to say that she did not meet with her death in either of the ways I suggested. Gentlemen, there is a doubt, and that doubt, I venture to assert, will grow into certainty when you have heard the testimony of this man’s character, which I shall now produce.” CHAPTER XXXV. OLIVIA’S TESTIMONY.