On a certain stifling morning in mid-summer, amongst the dozens of court-rooms the interest of the building was focused in General Sessions, Part One, where the case of the People versus Counsell was being tried under Stockman, J. A murder trial. Common as they are in that building a murder trial never quite loses its zest, and this, owing to the prominence of the persons concerned, was a celebrated case. Every morning a great crowd struggled to get into the courtroom, though the evidence was not of a sensational nature. There was no woman in the case. It was a foregone conclusion too; one of those cases which had been tried out in the newspapers before being brought into court, and a verdict of guilty rendered. Nobody had a good word for the defendant except the morbid women who stormed the court-room doors, and who secured a majority of the seats inside, simply because they were more persistent than the men. These women always sympathize with the prisoner, particularly if, as in this case, he happens to be young and comely. As a result of the furore in the newspapers many days had been taken up in the effort to secure an impartial jury. But once the taking of evidence began the proceedings moved swiftly enough. Only two days had been required by the prosecutor to present his case. Hackett, the particular star of the district-attorney's office, handled it. He had scarcely been obliged to exert himself; everything was going his way. In three days more the defendant's direct testimony was all in. Counsell was his own principal witness. He had told a straightforward story on the stand, and a ruthless cross-examination had failed to shake it. Unfortunately for him he had no witnesses to support his story. Proof of it rested with the dead man. There had been no witnesses to the final scene between them. The trial had now reached the stage of rebuttal testimony offered by the People. When Court adjourned for the noon recess, Corveth of Defendant's counsel made his way out of the building with a heavy air of dejection. He was a young man, the same age as the prisoner, an old friend it was said, and he had full charge of Counsell's case. He had put up a strenuous fight for his friend, but not perhaps a brilliant one. He was a first-rate lawyer, but he lacked the art of certain famous pleaders who, when they have a bad case, set out to charm and dazzle judge and jury with moving if irrelevant eloquence. Corveth was in deadly earnest. He passionately believed in his client's innocence, but he had scarcely succeeded in proving it. And he had often irritated the Bench by his dogged fight on points of law which took up time without apparently getting anywhere. Even now it was a mistake of tactics for Corveth so clearly to betray his discouragement to the inquisitive observers in the galleries.