"But why? Can't you trust me, Bess?" "It isn't that." "What then?" Bessie did not answer him, and he went on talking, though his voice was breaking again. He knew he was not a born lawyer and a great speaker like Stowell, but the facts were so clear that he had only to state them and they would speak for themselves. A fierce struggle was going on in Bessie's soul. He whom she had wronged (never having wronged anybody else), he for whom she had committed her crime, wanted her to authorise him to stand up in Court and say she had not committed it. She had deceived him once--could she deceive him again? "No, no, no! I cannot!" Alick was puzzled. "What do you mean, Bessie? Why shouldn't I be your advocate?" "I don't want any advocate." "But you must have one. It isn't enough to be not guilty--we must prove you're not. Why shouldn't I do so?" At length she was forced to make some explanation. The police were determined to have her condemned; therefore he would lose his case and that would go against him. "Good gracious, girl, what nonsense! Anybody may lose a case. The greatest lawyers have lost cases. But it's impossible that I should lose this one. And even if I lose it--do you know what I shall do?" "What?" "Wait outside the prison door until you come out and marry you the same day to show that I believe in you still." At that Bessie was in floods of tears again. And again they cried in each other's arms like children. Then Alick, after drying his eyes in the darkness, put on a brave air, and told her what she had to do. "Listen to me now. This is a low conspiracy, but if we are to defeat it, you must stick to your story. I shall have to put you in the box, for you must leave the Court without a stain on your character. First of all you must say...." And then sitting by Bessie's side in the dark cell, with only the candle looking in on them from the outside ledge of the grill, he rehearsed the facts as they were to be given in Court--how by the cruelty of her step-father she had been shut out of the house late at night and had had to go elsewhere; how she had returned, being unwell, and wishing her mother to nurse her, and how she had been put to bed and had never left it until the constables came to take her away. Bessie listened in silence, gazing before her like a captured sheep, and answering only by a nodding of her head. "If the Attorney asks you anything else--no matter what--you must say you know nothing about it---do you understand?" "Yes." "Say it after me then--'I know nothing about it.'" Bessie repeated the words like a woman talking in her sleep---"'I know nothing about it.'" "That's all right. Leave the rest to me." "You think I shall get off?" "I'm sure of it. If the General Gaol is held next week, we'll be married the week after." "But, Alick?" "Yes." "Your father and sisters, will they not always cast it up at you that your wife has been tried for...."