How this negative was to be proved in any circumstances it is difficult to see, and under the conditions Sir Charles had no chance to attack the accusation brought against him. Sir Charles's own comment in his Diary of the time was: '_July 16th_--My case tried again. I not a party, and--though really tried by a kind of Star Chamber--not represented, not allowed to cross-examine, not allowed to call witnesses; and under such circumstances the trial could have but one result, which was that the jury, directed to decide if they were in doubt that the Queen's Proctor had not established his case, would take that negative course. The trial lasted from Friday, 16th, to Friday, 23rd, inclusive, and the jury decided, as they could not have helped deciding, and as I should have decided had I been one of them.' The situation may be thus summed up: In the first trial the petitioner failed to produce any legal evidence whatever of the guilt of Sir Charles Dilke; in the second the Queen's Proctor failed to prove his innocence. [Footnote: Technically the verdict, by dismissing the Queen's Proctor's intervention, confirmed the original judgment, which dismissed Sir Charles from the case.] The verdict of the jury at the second trial was not a verdict of Guilty against Sir Charles; it was a declaration that his innocence was not proven, the question put to the Jury by the clerk after their return into Court following the words of the Act of Parliament, and being whether the decree nisi for the dissolution of the marriage of the petitioner and the respondent was obtained contrary to the justice of the case by reason of material facts not being brought to the knowledge of the Court. The Jury's answer followed the same words. [Footnote: See report in _Daily News_, Saturday, July 24th, 1886.] When we add to that the conditions under which the question was tried, we see that they were such as to make the proof of innocence impossible. Those about Sir Charles at this time remember how even at that bitter moment he began to look round for any method by which his case might be reheard. He wrote to Sir Henry James that it would be a proper course for himself to invite a trial for perjury; and though Lady Dilke was so ill 'from sick and sleepless nights' that she had been ordered at once to Royat, he waited for three weeks before accompanying her abroad, to give time for action to be taken, and wrote to Sir Richard Webster (then Attorney-General) practically inviting a prosecution. He did not abandon hope of a rehearing, and worked for many years in the trust that the evidence accumulated by himself and his friends might be so used, nor did he cease his efforts till counsel in consultation finally assured him 'that no means were open to Sir Charles Dilke to retry his case.'