When Dudley was taken out of the library where the coroner's jury sat, he was surrounded in the hall by several persons, all eager to have some conversation with him. Mr. Conway, the magistrate who had signed the warrant for his apprehension, spoke to him in a good-humoured way, expressing his sorrow that he had been called upon to perform so unpleasant a duty. Dudley bowed stiffly, but did not reply, for he was neither pleased with the act nor the apology; but he was immediately succeeded by another magistrate, who, with as much kindness and more judgment, pressed him to call every little particular of his walk on the preceding night to his mind; to put them down while they were still fresh in his memory; and to try to recollect every one he had seen or spoken with between the period of his quitting Brandon and his return, in order to prepare an unbroken chain of evidence for his defence. "I have known a man's life saved," he said, "by keeping a note-book, in which he wrote down at night everything that had occurred to him during the day." Dudley thanked him for his suggestions, and felt that he did not believe him guilty; but at the same time he perceived very clearly that the magistrate concluded the coroner's jury would give a verdict against him. Almost at the same moment Sir Arthur Adelon came up, and with a very peculiar expression of countenance pressed his hand, but without speaking. The next moment Edgar came in from the park, through the glass doors. His whole appearance betrayed great agitation. His eye was flashing, his cheek flushed, and there was a nervous, excitable quivering of his lip as he approached Dudley, which told how much he was moved. He wrung the prisoner's hand hard, with a swimming moisture in his eyes which he seemed ashamed of; but his tongue failed him when he tried to speak, and all he could say was, "Oh, Dudley!" "You do not think me guilty, I am sure, my young friend," said Dudley. "Guilty!" cried Edgar--"guilty! Oh! no, no; guilty of nothing but of too high and noble a heart. I have been out all the morning since I heard of this dreadful affair, seeking for evidence all the way you went; but I have been able to find none. Which way did you take after you passed the lodge?" "It matters not, Edgar, at present," answered Dudley. "Many thanks for your kindness, but all that must be thought of hereafter. I can easily see how these good gentlemen will decide, and I must have counsel down from London, who will gather together the necessary testimony to prove my innocence of an act I never even dreamed of. I shall call upon your kindness, I dare say, Edgar, in the course of this affair."