And day after day, in this fetid atmosphere of guilt and death and horror, Lady Montressor sat and sickened—sickened and despaired to see these poor outcasts of Christianity—these sinning and suffering wrecks of humanity—men, women, and even children, one after another, fall into the horrible pit prepared by their own crimes. For the acquittals were very few. English courts are stern and strict, almost invariably endorsing by their action the warrants of their justice, and the true bills of their grand jury. The numerous, seemingly merciless convictions of the court, wrung her heart not only with the most painful pity for other sufferers, but with despair for herself and for those deeply interested in her fate. And as she heard one after another culprit convicted of theft, poaching, shop-lifting, burglary, or what not,—sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, and saw the half-brutal, half-demoniac faces of these wretches glare on her as they passed out,—again the vision of the convict ship, and colony, with all their loathsome horrors, darkened around her soul, for she remembered that the crime of which she—even _she_—stood accused, was also a transportable offense; and convictions seemed to be the unvarying rule of this court! And thus, in this foul and deadly atmosphere of sin and sorrow, she sat and sickened and despaired, until the thirteenth day, when her case was called. It was the first of June, when the sun smiled down in cloudless beauty from the deep blue sky, upon a land green with luxuriant vegetation, blooming and fragrant with flowers, and vocal with the songs of birds. It was a bright, beautiful, and glorious day; but to Estelle and her friends a day of darkness, gloom and terror! The news that the trial would come on that morning had been noised abroad, all over the city, and throughout the country, and had attracted all Exeter to the court-house.