"I am innocent. I did not do it. I did not kill her. I never touched her. There is something I do not understand." That was all he had to say--and that was not enough. As the judge very soon made him comprehend. He took a black thing out of a tin box which was at his side and perched it on the top of his wig, and he sentenced Tommy to be hanged; and, in sentencing him, he gave it to him hot. He told him that instead of exhibiting any signs of remorse for the dreadful thing he had done he had just uttered an infamous lie to add to the rest of his crimes. That lie had extinguished any spark of pity which he might have felt. Tommy had been guilty of as wicked, as cruel, and as cowardly a murder as had ever come within the range of the judge's experience. He might not hope for mercy. There was no circumstance of extenuation. He had behaved more like a devil than a man. He was a disgrace to his class and to his station, and he had brought shame upon our common manhood; and the sentence of the court was that he should be taken to the place from whence he came, and there be hanged by the neck till he was dead; and might God have mercy on his soul! And that was the end of it--or it might have been, if it had not been for me. I don't know how it was; I don't know whether the devil prompted me or not. But the idea came to me, all at once, with a force which was beyond my powers of resistance. And I did it! I dropped my cloak, I removed my veil, and I stood up where I knew that Tommy would see me. And he did see me. He looked my way, and he saw me, and he knew me too! And I smiled at him. And with sudden, instant recognition he stretched out his arms towards me in a kind of frenzy; and he tried to speak, or shout, or do something, but he couldn't. And before he could get a word out edgeways the warder bustled him down the stairs below. BOOK IV--THE CRIMINAL. (_The Author tells the Tale_.) CHAPTER XXXIII. MR. TENNANT SPEAKS. "I saw her! I saw her!" "None of that now. You'd better come quietly." Mr Tennant looked at the warder who spoke. With the assistance of his colleague the man was hurrying him along in a fashion which, even at that moment of amazement and of horror, in some subtle way reminded him of his school days. "I saw her!" he repeated. "So you might have done; nobody says you didn't. Only don't let's have any fuss." The man spoke as one might speak, not ill-naturedly, but with the superior wisdom of a senior to a fractious child. Mr. Tennant knew that he was not understood; that it was no use to attempt to make himself understood. His mind was in a chaos. What was he to do?