“Why? Oh! why? You were always just. You never judged your poorest slave, unheard! Oh! what have I done, or omitted to do? Tell me! Make the charge, and see how I can answer it! Archer!—I mean Major Clifton—forgive it—but for all, it springs so naturally from heart to lip, to call you Archer—because—because there is no feeling of estrangement in my heart, nor can I make it there! Major Clifton, then!—consider!—the greatest criminals have the right of a trial, with the crime of which they are suspected, distinctly and openly charged upon them—with the evidence on both sides taken, and their defence heard, before they are condemned. I know that you would not be otherwise than just. Will you condemn me untried, unjudged, unheard?” “It is quite sufficient to me, madam,” he answered, haughtily, “that the proofs of your turpitude are conclusive to my own mind.” “I know it,” she said, meekly, “I know it—yet, pause—what would you think of the justice of a judge, who should say to one suspected of crime—‘Your guilt is so clear, that it is useless to charge you with it, or to hear the testimony, or to listen to what you might have to say in your defence,’ and so proceed to condemn him? Such things were never, surely, done, in the darkest ages, or under the most despotic rulers. And is that guilt, of which I am suspected, of so heinous a character as to preclude me from the privilege extended even to criminals—the privilege of a trial?” She paused—but he continued to regard her with a stern, set face, without replying. Drooping over the table, and leaning heavily upon it, she spoke again, and her voice fell in low, but clear, melodious tones, as she said—“God and man, and I, myself, have made you my judge, and the arbiter of my destiny here. It is an awful power. You have made me feel it to be such. It is an awful power, because it is a subtile, invisible power—higher, and deeper, and broader than any law. I have no appeal from it—none! Nor—please to understand me—do I wish for any—for if all the world were to clear me, I should still be condemned, if you condemned me. And oh! listen, and believe me—believe me, for it is from my deep heart that I speak this truth—if you had the power and the will to doom me to death—my instincts would teach me rather to receive death at your hands, than to save my life by appealing from your judgment to another tribunal. I am loyal. I am faithful! God knoweth that I am. Let me prove it. Put me upon my defence. Do not—oh, do not persist in condemning me, unheard.” “Catherine,” he answered, in a softened voice—“you are not condemned; if you were, you would not be standing here at my side.” “What do you mean? good Heaven!”