Only for a short time were the spectators in doubt as to the result of the trial. None of the evidence was convincing; each witness seemed more feeble than his predecessor. Serjeant Davy, rough and ready, tore their statements to tatters. To the jury Mrs Robert Perreau seemed eager to swear aught that might save the life of her unhappy husband. Admiral Frankland, in the face of his petticoat theft, appeared to have pressed the prosecution out of greed and for the sake of revenge. John Moody, a footman discharged by the prisoner, must have been regarded, very properly, as a barefaced liar. The famous Christian Hart, another old servant with a grudge, who was answered on all points by the evidence of the indefatigable Bailey, could prove nothing concerning the forgery cited in the indictment. All the while Mrs Rudd kept on passing notes to her counsel--more than fifty in number--suggesting questions to baffle the hostile witnesses. The trial lasted for nearly twelve hours. When the jury returned into court, after an absence of thirty minutes, Henry Angelo, the fencing-master, saw the gay auctioneer who was the foreman throw a meaning smile towards the beautiful prisoner. “Not guilty according to the evidence before us!” declared the jury, while the court thundered with applause. At last her bitter ordeal was over, and Margaret Rudd, smiling through her tears, stepped gaily into a coach that was waiting at the door of Old Bailey. Then she was driven, post haste, to her new home with the wicked Lord Lyttelton. Certainly this charming and clever woman was far from being too good to live. Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of person to make the introduction.