And now the Coroner—in a quick, bustling fashion, as though he were in a hurry, and should be glad to get so unimportant a matter off his hands—began to inform the jury of what their clear duty was, and how rapidly they might set about it. The body of this young girl, gentlemen, had been found in the adjacent wood. She was stabbed very near a vital part, and had undoubtedly, under considerable pain, and for a period perhaps of half-an-hour, slowly bled to death. They would be told—by the medical gentleman then present—who had made a most careful post-mortem examination of the body—that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. Such being the case, gentlemen, it devolved upon them to discover in what fashion her death had been caused; and here he would remind them that they must be guided entirely by circumstantial evidence. A man—a gentleman of good position—appeared before them that day, in a most unenviable situation. It was not for him, gentlemen, to tell them of their duty, or to lead them to imagine that any guilt attached to the man they saw before them; all that they must judge for themselves. But they would be confronted with witnesses—most unwilling witnesses—who would tell them of the intimacy which had undoubtedly existed between this man and the murdered girl; they would be told, gentlemen, by a witness from the railway station, of the appearance of this man, in a great state of excitement and hurry, at the station, in time—barely in time, gentlemen, to catch the last train to London. This, too, on the very night of the murder, and within a very short time of the hour at which, according to the medical testimony they would hear, this unfortunate young woman must have been struck down. Here the Coroner stopped to clear his throat, and to glance at Philip Chater—as though to assure that unfortunate man that he was quite prepared to put a rope round his neck within the next few minutes, and had already got it half spun.