Here the learned advocate commenced and gave in detail the sorrowful history of Estelle’s school life as it is already known to the reader. His earnestness, his eloquence and graphic delineation of the wrongs and sufferings of the beautiful woman who sat there waiting her doom, in death-like stillness,—in turn flushed every cheek with indignation, or filled every eye with tears. In the course of his speech he said—in answer to the false and totally unfounded assumptions of the prosecuting attorney, and to silence forever those who from any cause might be disposed to cavil,—he should state and prove, that, illegal as was that quasi marriage, it had been entered upon in perfectly good faith by his client. She supposed it valid and binding; infant as she was, she believed herself a wife. And most wretched as that false marriage proved, and deeply repented as it was, _she_ had remained, in every respect scrupulously faithful to its supposed obligations. Yes, faithful not only for the ten months that she lived and suffered under the cruel despotism of her _soi disant_ husband, but after that,—when the penal laws of France had sent him a convict to Algiers, for the ten years of separation, and the two years of supposed widowhood. She had borne her burden _alone_, until in due course of time her betrothal to a certain noble peer, here present, made it right and proper that she should confide to him the fact of the previous union, then supposed to be broken by death. I have thus given but a skeleton of Lord Dazzleright’s address—would I could infuse into it the fullness, force, and vitality of the original. He finished amid a breathless silence, and proceeded to call his witnesses. They were not many, but had been selected with the greatest care. The advocate had been very busy during the interval of the past month, and had spared neither time, labor, nor expense, in collecting and consolidating testimony. He had drawn from his client’s native county, witnesses of the very highest standing, to give testimony upon the exemplary piety of her life and manners, and he had dispatched a confidential agent to the Chief of Police at Paris, to procure his assistance in hunting up the employees who had been in the service of Madame L’Orient, at the time of the disgraceful breaking up of her “Pensionat,” and in selecting such as were most competent to give evidence in this case. These were now in court, and were successively called to the stand. Their united testimony harmonized perfectly, and corroborated the statements of the advocate. They were in turn severely cross-examined by the king’s counsel; but the more their testimony was tried, the stronger it was proved. The advocate here rested the defense. The Judge then arose to review the case, sum up the evidence, and charge the jury.